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I hope Yahoo have counted their fingers after that handshake.

Exactly. I would think this would fall under the category of collusion except that they are not trying to keep it a secret that they two, totally unrelated companies, are coming together to try to harm the market standing of another.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aG9B5.J3Bl1w

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aAgJd1ukypp8

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ap9hu2Dr07U0

Microsoft is this , very poor , very little , small company who is allowed to do criminal things because other do so and that they would be at a disadvantage
if they did not.

"The greatest trick Microsoft ever pulled was convincing the world that it was harmless and changed it's ways."

Edited 2009-07-29 14:11 UTC

In what world is Microsoft a monopolist in the search and online advertising market?

Prevention of a monopolist is why Google (the overwhelmingly dominant market leader) isn't allowed to make such deals.

In this one , Microsoft is a criminal corporation found guitly of crime and of being a monopoly.

If you prevent the creation of a monopoly , you don't let a guilty one do what you prevented from a lawful company who aint one yet and probably never will be.

Majority Marketshare don't create monopoly or antitrust. It's when your the only one able to survive or you do it criminally that there is a problem.

Microsoft as been #1 illegally on the desktop for decades , killing and illegaly preventing competition.

Google as only recently taken over the majority marketshare in Search engine. They don't kill other Search engine and they don't prevent any other from creation and competiting.

So how are they a "criminal organization"?
Losing a civil antitrust suit or being declared guilty of violating civil antitrust law by the EC doesn't equate to criminality any more than getting a speeding ticket does. Not all violations of law are "criminal", in fact, most aren't.

LOTS of companies have lossed civil suits and one time or another in their history. Are they all "criminal organizations" according to you?

Here are some difference between criminal and civil law:
In order to be found guilty of a crime (i.e. criminal law), one must be found guilty by a unanimous jury of 12 jurors (in the US, at least), beyond a reasonable doubt. And in a criminal trial, the accuse is not required to take the stand (in the US, at least).

On the other hand, in order to be found liable of violating civil law, a single judge or a jury panel (which can have fewer than 12 members (as little as 5), and many times doesn't have to be unanimous) must find the accused liable according to the "preponderence of evidence" (which means 50% of the evidence plus 1, and is a much lower burden of proof than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" necessary for criminal conviction). And (in the US) the accused cannot refuse to take the stand in a civil trial, unlike with criminal trials.

Lastly, in the EU, the EC can declare a party guilty of violating civil antitrust law without even going through a trial at all. The EU does not allow that for criminal law.

The difference between civil and criminal law actually matters. If the MS/DOJ case had actually been a criminal matter, then the DOJ would have had to prove its case "beyond a reasonable doubt" according to a unanimous 12-member jury, and Microsoft officials wouldn't have been compelled to testify (the defense could call them to voluntarily testify, of course). Looking at the evidence of the MS/DOJ trial, there's no way in hell that the DOJ would have met the "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden, so Microsoft would have walked away scott-free.

But since it was a civil trial, the DOJ only had to prove its case to a single judge (a moron, at that) according to "preponderance of evidence" (50%+1 of the evidence).

So the difference between civil and criminal law actually matters. You have a history of ignoring the differences and have played fast and loose with the term "criminal organization" (and the like). You've been told the difference before, but you continue to spout your false talking points. You are either ignorant and refuse to learn, or you know better and are simply lying.

I totally agree with you on that. Microsoft is a very small player in the search and online advertising. By combining hands with Yahoo, they have a good chance of taking a shot at google. Which IMHO is a good thing, since google's dominance on the search is/was disturbing.

As an example, a local yoga center here got a wrong phone number listed on google. Whenever I called them, the number did not go through and I thought they have closed their location. They don't have a website. However I was able to find correct number on bing. When I told them about google, they were like yeah we have been asking google to fix it for over a month! This is what can happen, if there is only 1 player in the market.

You see the picture?

While I am the first one in line advocating competition, do you REALLY want Microsoft to take Google's place? Do we really want Microsoft to be #1 in ANOTHER market, considering their past behavior?

I don't care who is #1 as long as there is competition. Look at XBOX, Microsoft has done a great job there. And it seems from reviews that Windows 7 is also a great OS.

In both the areas, they have competion but they are also number 1. So MS being #1 in search/ads is fine with me, as long as their is a solid competition as well.

In fact, lately google search has been subpar.

Edited 2009-07-29 18:42 UTC

Microsoft is non existent in the web space outside of hotmail (not counting microsoft.com which is a corporate portal not a service) Between them, google and yahoo own most of the major web properties. Microsoft buying yahoo outright would mean they were in the game, google buying yahoo would remove the last shreds of competition in the advertising and search markets.

MS may have dominated the PC OS market, but they have been thrashing wildly but accomplishing nothing in the web world for years now.