- Viacom lawsuit - The Apple Wars - Issues in China - The Phone Wars - Oh ya, search wars with Microsoft
That is a great deal on Googles dinner plate. Doesn't all that start to wear a company down?
mack
4:27 am on Mar 21, 2010 (gmt 0)
I think investors have every right to be very nervous. For years Google was held in very high regard, and I think their "Googly image" saw them through quite a few legal issues. Now its wearing thin and all it takes is one major decision to go against them and there could be a snowball.
The Viacom case is one of the biggest legal issues to hit Google so far, and this is one where they stand a real chance of loosing. To be honest if I was Google, I would pull the plug on Youtube tomorrow, and set up shop as "pay per view" and nothing else. It looses to much money, it causes to many legal issues and it pulls Google even further into the mud.
Mack.
tangor
5:42 am on Mar 21, 2010 (gmt 0)
Add to the list the Italian inquiries into Adsense. Looks like Google has finally achieved behemoth status (ie., deep pockets) which draws all kinds of interest.
zett
7:00 am on Mar 21, 2010 (gmt 0)
Also missing from the list the Google Streetview issues, that particularly Germany seems to have. The same folks who heavily criticize Analytics.
tangor
8:12 am on Mar 21, 2010 (gmt 0)
Still percolating is the book deal...
This last year has not been good for google.
TheMadScientist
9:10 am on Mar 21, 2010 (gmt 0)
The bigger question IMO is how will these situations affect shareholder and public opinion of Google as a company?
I'll use YouTube as an example... If they would have looked at the information (80% of the content is pirated) and gone to the rightful owner, negotiated a deal for the content and joined the rightful owner in a lawsuit against YouTube IMO they could have rightfully owned the market, but instead they went out and bought the pirate site.
YouTube didn't (doesn't) make any money... How could they possibly afford to fight a lawsuit (or multiple lawsuits) brought against them by Google, Viacom and anyone else Google and Viacom could find?
Why do they keep possibly (IMO most likely) damaging their own public opinion when they could do what they want the right way and possibly (IMO most likely) save money and public perception?
Personally, I think if they went to Viacom 4 or 5 years ago and said, 'Hey, we'll buy a license to the content YouTube is pirating for $500 Mil and join you in a suit against them to put an end to the piracy.', they would probably have had a deal and great public opinion of them, but instead they went and bought the pirate site for $1.67 Bil. Huh, Why?
How many people would have continued to visit YouTube if Google had just purchased the content for Google Video, made it look better and easier to use than YouTube and put Google Video in the search results instead of YouTube?
It's like they're compromising their image, reputation and public perception for no good reason... They're a 5.5 year old (publicly traded) company and they're acting like they're the biggest bully on the block when they haven't stood the test of time like Microsoft, Apple, News Corp, Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, merged with GTE, became Verizon), Xerox, and most of the other companies they're competing with have...
Another one I can't figure out is why on earth would they want to square off with all those behemoths at the same time, especially while they're creating a landslide of negative public opinion around the world?
I wonder what the Buzz (privacy) on the Street Views (privacy) and in the papers (News Corp) will be about this week? YouTube (piracy), Apple (patent infringement by the Co. making Google's droid phones), Xerox (patent infringement), Bing (search), Yahoo! (Verizon's new search engine on phones), FaceBook (overall traffic)...
