Is Google a True Monopoly?

Monopolies are defined as an industry dominated by one corporation, or business, like standard oil. They are a main driver of inequality, as profits concentrate more on wealth in the hands of the few.(Atlantic). A monopoly has total or nearly all control of that industry. They are considered an extreme result of the U.S. free market capitalism. The business own everything, from the goods to the supplies to the infrastructure. This company will become big enough to buy out other competitors or even crush their competitor by lowering their prices to get the other business to go out of business. They will then control the whole industry without any restarted, having the prices be what they want and the product to be in what condition they want

In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge high prices.[4] Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).[5]

Today, Google, Inc. is worth more than General Motors, McDonald's and Disney combined, and the company continues to model the way in the global technology industry in which it competes. In fact, the company's name has become a verb and it is common practice for consumers to "Google" what they want to find online. To determine how Google, Inc. reached this dazzling level of performance in a relatively short period of time, this paper provides an analysis of the three external environments in which Google competes, the general environment, the industry environment and the competitor environment. Next, a discussion of two specific strategic issues as well as opportunities and threats that are facing Google, Inc. is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

By definition a Monopoly is exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices (Monopoly 2012). Individuals are often time fearful of a company or industry becoming a monopoly because it would control too much of a market share, and do whatever wants; this includes raising prices, to using excess capital to branch into even more areas (Rise of monopolies 1996). The market structure of a monopoly is characterized by; a single seller; a unique product; and impossible entry into the market (Tucker 2011). A monopoly can be a difficult thing to accomplish being that a single seller faces an entire industry demand curve due to the fact it makes up the industry as a

With the coined corporate motto “don’t be evil,” Google reaches into the everyday experience of millions of people around the world. Placing itself in the center of the Internet culture, as the world’s leading search engine, Google is single handedly changing computing landscape. Jonathan Knee, Bruce Greenwald, and Ava Seave of Columbia University dismantle the myths stimulated in media economics. The growth of the unflattering results of The Curse of the Mogul argues, that the advantages and benefits are an illusion and media companies are unsuccessful in grasping the concept of competitive advantage. In Googled: The End of the World as We Know it, Google does not face the challenges of unsuccessful competitive advantage, as their level of competitiveness and competence expands, they prove The Curse of the Mogul is right.

Monopolies played a big factor in the 1870’s to 1914. These originally came to the United States with the colonial administration. Monopoly’s refers to a market structure whereby there is only a single firm operating in an economy. Companies though normally characterized by the absence of competition in the market.

Monopoly power is the power of a monopoly firm where they are able to control or set a price in its market.

The European Union started to inspect whether Google breached antitrust laws. They filed charges against Google and opened an examination of Google’s Android system. The European Union sent Google an official grievance. They could charge Google up to 6.4 billion dollars if they discovered that they are in the wrong. The EU believes Google is using their power as the leading search engine to remove competition from other specialized search engines, such as shopping websites, by ranking its own Google shopping results at the top of the list. In 2010, Foundem, a shopping website based in Europe, brought a suit against Google, which is what brought Google to the EU’s attention (Finely, 2015).

What is a monopoly? According to Webster's dictionary, a monopoly is "the exclusive control of a commodity or service in a given market.” Such power in the hands of a few is harmful to the public and individuals because it minimizes, if not eliminates normal competition in a given market and creates undesirable price controls. This, in turn, undermines individual enterprise and causes markets to crumble. In this paper, we will present several aspects of monopolies, including unfair competition, price control, and horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate mergers.

Though Google seemed to promote free-thinking and free speech on one hand, they were censoring and filtering with the other. Google lost credibility with the public, thus tarnishing its public image and “loosing 1% of the U.S. market in one month,” as reported in The Business. (2006, Aug) “Image credibility is based on the constituency’s perception of the organization” (Argenti, 2009, p.39). When the public image of a company has been compromised it “can make a huge difference in determining the success or failure of the organization” (Argenti, 2009, p. 40). When the public looses confidence in a company and what they stand for, they no longer wish to use its product. In response, executives at Google attempted to convince the public that they could handle the balancing act between censorship and providing information, and gain back public trust and confidence.

Google is the most popular search engine that the world uses on an everyday basis. Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google in 1998. What started out to be a small search engine and ranking system are now the worlds most profitable Internet companies of our time. Google has created many products today that have changed the world of technology, products such as Google+, YouTube, Android, Motorola Mobility, the Nexus 7 tablet computer, Google Wallet, and Google Glass (p.470). Google is qualified as one of the best companies to work for (p.464.) The issue we are facing today is the privacy policy

Google is a company that was conceptualized in a dorm room by two Stanford University college students in 1996 (Arnold, 2005, p. 1) and has morphed into one of the greatest technological powerhouses in operation today. What began as merely a means to analyze and categorize Web sites according to their relevance has developed into a vast library of widely utilized resources, including email servicing, calendaring, instant messaging and photo editing, just to reference a few. Recent statistics collected by SearchEngineWatch.com reflects that of the 10 billion searches performed within the United States during the month of February, 2008, an impressive 5.9 billion of them were executed by Google (Burns, 2008). Rated as Fortune Magazine’s

Quality: Andreas Cardenal wrote in a July 2015 article, “Why I Own Google Inc. Stocks” that The Google name is very powerful because it is one of the most valued brands in the world. The name carries so much power that the term ‘googling’ has become a household name; this is a synonym representing online search. This is power that’s only reserved for the most foremost brands on the planet. He also talked about Google having a significant market share of more than 90% in the global search market according to data from StatCounter. (Cardenal, 2015)

Google is the most successful information technology and web search company in the world. It was founded in 1998 by two Stanford Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company name, Google, is a play on the word “googol” which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose this name to reflect the large amount of information on the web. The two created this search engine so that people can find anything on the web all in one place. The company’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Now, the company is far more than a search engine website, it has grown to be a substantial collection of products and services that are

Perhaps the most critical approach to Google’s position has been the European Parliament’s quest to limit its market control. The company, which controls over 90% of searches in many European countries, has faced a number of legal challenges from the European Parliament in recent years.