On Tuesday Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, was talking to a Congressional hearing about anti-trust. But he wasn’t on the defensive. Instead he was speaking about the Yahoo–Google ad deal. It would, he claimed, damage the market.
"Never before in the history of advertising has one company been in the position to control prices on up to 90 percent of advertising in a single medium," Smith said.
"If search is the gateway to the Internet, and most believe that it is, this deal will put Google in a position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it."
Of course, that deal came about while Microsoft was making a concerted attempt to take over Yahoo. The Yahoo-Google ad deal, which Yahoo claims could generate $800 million in revenue, allows Google to display ads in Yahoo search results.
Microsoft’s biggest concern at the hearing, though, was privacy, as Smith made plain:
"If one company controls up to 90 percent of online search advertising it will have a complete picture of your online activities. If that happens, Congress won’t need to enact a federal privacy policy, we will already have a national privacy policy – Google’s privacy policy."
