Google. No One Can Stop It. No One. No One. Aaaargh.
April 24, 2016
When I was a wee lad in days when admission to a motion picture was 25 cents, I recall watching with eyeballs wide open The Blob. Look at the poster for the film which flickered across the silver screen in 1958:
The words chosen to promote the film were “indescribable,” “indestructible,” and “Nothing can stop it.”
I read “If the Eurocrats Don’t Take on Google, No One Will Be Able to Stop It.” I find it interesting that the shock and awe words used by a promotion team in 1958 have become the currency of “real” journalism and punditry. Nothing can stop it lacks only an exclamation point.
The write up, wittingly or unwittingly, evokes “the molten meteor” as a metaphor for Google. The article reminded me:
If the commission decides that Google has indeed broken European competition law, then it can levy fines of up to 10% of the company’s annual global revenue for each of the charges. Given that Google’s global sales last year came to nearly $75bn, we’re talking about a possible fine of $15bn (£10.5bn). Even by Google standards, that’s serious money. And it’s not exactly an idle threat: in the past, the Eurocrats have taken more than a billion dollars off both Microsoft and Intel for such violations.
Money. The molten meteor cannot ignore that financial blood bank contribution. Imagine. Messrs. Brin and Page losing color and wheezing toward a Foosball game in the Alphabet Google offices in Mountain View. Frightening.
The legal system lacks a Steve McQueen it seems. The forces of good (the European Commission) has to find a way to stop the Alphabet Google from spelling doom. The article whines:
Once upon a time, we relied on the state to do this on our behalf – to cut monopolies down to size, to keep corporate power in check. The strange thing about the digital world is that states now seem unequal to this task. At the moment, the EC is the only game in town. Which makes one wonder if the Brexit enthusiasts have thought of that.
The Google has been doing exactly one thing consistently for more than 15 years. To stop the Google is an interesting thought. I am not confident that fines will do the trick. After cranking out three monographs about the Google between 2004 and 2009, it is pretty clear that the Google is falling victim to flawed reproduction of its own DNA. The death of the Alphabet Google will come from within the company itself. Regulators may find themselves looking in the mirror and see Mr. McQueen, but my research suggested:
- The shift to mobile is putting new stresses upon the governance structure of the Google
- The endless photocopying of the company’s online ad DNA is producing fuzzier and fuzzier systems and methods. I ran a query and had to work to spot an objective result. Try this query yourself from your laptop and then from your mobile phone: “Manhattan lawyers.” What’s an ad?
- The founders, once passionate about search, are now involved in math and science club projects like solving death.
- Users make the Google and the users are less and less aware of options. Online services coalesce into monopolies and the process has been chugging along for more than 15 years.
I like the zing of the “Nothing can stop it.” But the Alphabet Google thing is not forever no matter what regulators and alarmists assert. The blob did not die. It was put on ice. With the situation facing the European Community, I don’t think a suitable cooling system is available at this time. A small USB fan maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2016
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