"Google's highly profitable secret war against small businesses and jobs"

[zdnet.com...]

Great article that showed up on digg. Sums up a lot of what gets talked about on the /google forum very eloquently.

example:

"...
Yet in its core business, under the renewed leadership of CEO Larry Page, Google has launched an incredibly aggressive strategy targeting mostly small firms. You can see how effective this has been in the following numbers culled from its financial reports.

For example, for the whole of last year, 2010 Google’s revenues from its own sites could barely keep pace with growth in revenues from its AdSense partner network — mostly small firms.

2010:

- In Q1 Google sites grew 20% and partner sites grew 24%

- In Q2 Google sites grew 23% and partner sites grew 23%

- In Q3 Google sites grew 22% and partner sites grew 22%

- In Q4 Google sites grew 22% and partner sites grew 24%

Yet in 2011 this trend miraculously reversed itself within just 1 quarter and Google sites’ growth jumped suddenly and for no outward reason.

2011:

- In Q1 Google sites grew 32% and partner sites grew 19%

- In Q2 Google sites grew 39% and partner sites grew 20%

- In Q3 Google sites grew 39% and partner sites grew 18%
..."