Is Google a true monopoly?

Abstract

Google is arguably the most popular search engine used on the internet. The company offers superior search results and clearly employs workers with innovative ideas that can keep the company ahead of the competition. However Google’s own mission statement requires that it “Do no evil,” meaning that it has made readily available the tools that have made the company successful. The Justice Department would like to categorize Google as a monopoly, but due to its open book reporting and its development of additional services, proving monopolistic status would be difficult and perhaps ineffective.

A monopoly is defined as “a firm that is the sole seller of a product without close substitutes” (Mankiw, 507). Within recent years the major internet company, Google, has come under fire with speculation and outright accusations that it is a monopoly in the services it provides. Google maintains that the company has direct competition and that because its practices and formulas are readily available to the competition, the company cannot be considered a monopoly.
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 issued a maximum threshold of 70% of shares in any given industry. While Google argues that it cannot be held responsible for their competitors’ inability to employ the techniques used by Google itself, they cannot argue with the fact that they hold 70% of the share of search advertising and 67% of general search share. If the government focuses on these numbers along with Google’s unprecedented growth each year, it could be deemed a monopoly. The question then becomes whether regulation or breaking up the company would be a wise decision. Historically, government intervention has tended to backfire. For example, in the early 1900s, Standard Oil, owned by John D. Rockefeller, was deemed a monopoly. The Supreme Court ruled in