Google's Opinion on "Hostile Microsoft bid for Yahoo!"

Google addressed the bid made by Microsoft to take over Yahoo! in aggressive terms, pointing fingers and laying blame, dishing out possibly problematic legal aspects. Very much like what Bill Gates' company did when the Mountain View based company announced its acquisition of DoubleClick. At the time, Google was very confident and said that a monopoly was not by far what it was going for, that it was just strengthening its forces. Funny or ironic, that's exactly the type of arguments that Microsoft could use in its defense.

David Drummond, the Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer for Google wrote in a post to the Official Google blog that Microsoft Corp.'s bid should not effect because it would stand against "the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation." He based that opinion on the PC OS market dominance that the Redmond company already has, claiming that the two of them together would "extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet."

A big problem for Google, among others, is that it is already trailing Yahoo! in email, and, if the acquisition is to go through, it would probably be one of the products it would really have a difficult time competing with. Making Yahoo! Mail the default address for Windows would almost certainly boost its numbers at a much higher rate of growth than the 3 percent per year it is recording right now. That would make it nigh unreachable and that Google's predicted 2010 catching up with it would be history.

"This hostile bid was announced on Friday, so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed. We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture. We believe that the interests of Internet users come first -- and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored," David Drummond ended his plea for help. The first time I've seen Google actually worried about its competition since it rose high and strong.