Is Google a dangerous monopolist?

Thirteen years after its foundation, Google Inc. is one of the most profitable and successful companies in the world. What started being a search engine, today has a wide range of products and services like Google Earth, Gmail, Maps, Youtube, Google Chrome, etc. but, isn’t it dangerous that a company holds that power? Does it affect to the market freedom?

The main power of Google is its search engine, overwhelming leader in the world which act like an information filter , if something does not appear in Google, it does not exist, it provides or hides the information they want, it could make a company, organization or person disappear, and soon it will be more powerful than the Governments.

 

Besides, between all the services it provides, the user register and give and could save a lot of personal information, these are the most dangerous problems. What consequences could have the fact of that a company could hold that amount of personal information? Actually, Google is having some legal problems about the user’s privacy.  Right now all those questions are in the air; Google is growing so fast and is so international that it is very difficult to guess what will happen in the future. Its technology capacity and specially its free services are making that Google increases its market share. The Google reality is full of lights but with some darks that we should take into account.

 

In my opinion, taking a look at the market shares in the world (90.1% in the UK, 61% in the USA, and 92.5 in Germany) Google is a monopoly, because I think that a monopoly situation is not only caused by the number of competitors but also by the market share, besides I consider that is a very dangerous monopoly because Google could make a decision and cause a company goes out of business, especially if it is a web which profits depends on the visits and advertising, if Google deletes that company from its search, the company would simply disappear, and the same will happen with organization or even people.

 

Google has a wider and better range of services than its competitors and with its search engine it favors the use its services and products, just a click, and it is true that all those vantages have been achieved starting with equal opportunities in the market, Google is what it is due to its own merits, there are no exit barriers in the market but there are currently many entry barriers motivated to all the power concentrated by just one company, and that makes impossible to face Google, but this is not the main problem, the main problem is the great amount of personal information which Google owns and that amount will be higher due to its increase in the storage capacity which could be much more superior than the governmental centers of the USA. How could be it stopped? I think that if we do not stop it, we will sorry of giving that power to a company.