Google SVP David Drummond published a post titled "Yahoo! and the future of the Internet" a couple of hours ago on the official Google blog. It's the first official statement I'm aware of on the matter from Google. Snip:
The openness of the Internet is what made Google — and Yahoo! — possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It's what makes the Internet such an exciting place.
So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.
Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.
Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions — and consumers deserve satisfying answers.
Link. NYT analysis piece by Miguel Helft here.
Image ganked from jgolson's contribution to this Fark photoshop contest (produced with Valleywag), which is full of LOL.
UPDATE: Redmond responds. Statement from Brad Smith, General Counsel, Microsoft.
Previously on BB:
