To truly become a monopoly a business needs to have sufficient control over the service or product that they offer. A monopoly will generally have little or no economic competition for the goods and services that they provide. As many search marketers are discovering, Google is rapidly taking control of the online search market and are clearly the dominating force.
There are big questions being raised as to how Google has been able to get such a large strangle-hold on the search market. Google now controls approximately 70% of the search market and the main question being asked is whether or not the company has played by the rules in order to gain this much control.
Over the last few years Google has managed to take the share of the search market away from the other main players. The market share back in 2002 was relatively even with Google, Yahoo and MSN each with approximately 25%. The remainder of the market share was predominately split between AOL and Ask.com.
Since this time however, Google has all but seized control of the search market. Yahoo! now only takes a little over 15% of the market share while MSN has dropped below 10%. With Google rapidly taking a monopoly in the search market we will take a look at how this may affect Internet users.
Monopolies Control the Rules
If Google is able to take full control the search market they will be able to set the rules, regulations and guidelines as they wish. Basically, even if you do not like their rules you will have no choice but to accept them as there would simply be no other options. In fact, it would become possible for Google to penalise you if you did not follow their rules by taking your site and of their index.
Ability to Dictate Prices
With Google currently setting the standards for pay per click advertising it would not take much for their strength in this market to rise considerably if they can take a larger search market share. With domination in this market it would be possible for Google to artificially inflate pay per click prices. If this was to happen marketers would not have much choice but to pay the money or stop advertising.
Unreasonable Demands
It is quite possible Google becomes increasingly difficult or even unreasonable when it comes to listing your site in their search engine. There are rumours flying around the Internet that with a Google Monopoly you will need to provide information about your site before it can get included. In time it may even become possible for Google to control the information that is spread across Internet. Also, if Google is able to take full control there will be little chance for a competitor as they will know the majority of things that happen online before anyone else.
Possible Corruption
This is something that could possibly lie in the future for Google with the fact that it is a corporate entity. All information that Google gathers from your activity is currently kept private as this is the right thing for their business. However, the past has shown with other monopolies that doing ‘the right thing' for their customers is not always the right thing for business. Any incentives that Google has to do the right thing for their customers could possibly disappear as they take more of the market share.
At the end of the day, even if Google was able to control 100% of the search market I don't believe a great deal will change from the way things are now. I say this because if they do decide to exercise their power as a monopoly, I believe that they'll be quickly shut down and the users of Google's tools will turn away in droves not wanting to have anything to do with the unfair policies. However, I do not believe that MSN or Yahoo will be able to regain their share of the market. Instead, if anyone is going to have any chance of dismounting Google from the top, it would have to be something new and far better.
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