How Microsoft could Bankrupt Google
Posted on Dec 29, 2008 by
Paul White
Recently I installed Adblock Plus for FireFox. The reason was because on certain sites like ebay the ads tend to slow down load times. Since the ads are fed from an adserver this causes latency for any requests. After installing this I found load times much faster. Adblock Plus also works on sites running Google Ads. This sucks for Publishers as when google ads are blocked, there is no chance of them being clicked and the publisher doesn't make money.
But then I recently did a search right on google's homepage. When the results came up, I noticed that all ads were missing from google's own search page. This was a red flag to me. Not only does this plugin block ads from other sites, it blocks ads from google's own search engine.
Internet Explorer has 80% market share of the browsers on the web. This means that Microsoft has control over 80% of the people on the web. Currently there is no such plugin available for Internet Explorer. But if Microsoft developed a plugin, and allowed people to download it, helping to elminate ads ( like google's ), this could mean trouble for google. Google makes 95% of its revenue from the ads on its search engine. If a plugin was to suddenly block these ads, google's revenues would plumet. A sell off of their stock would surely follow, along with questions about their viability as a company.
Basically this is Google's Achiles heel. I believe that google knows this, and is quickly trying to move into other areas, to better diversify its revenue stream. Many would say that Microsoft could never do this because it would be considered hostile, and could possibly lead to litigation. But if Microsoft created the plugin and allowed people to download it by choice, rather than forcing it upon people via a Windows Update. Microsoft would not be liable for its damages.
Normally I have no problem with google ads. As they have a large network of servers that run their ads. but recently google started to integrate double click's ads into their own. Double click ads run much slower than google ads. Sometimes I have to wait 5+ seconds before double click's ads are fed to a page.
Logically if Microsoft did launch a plugin, google could just change the URLs of their ads. But then the thousands of webmasters would also have to change their code, this could take weeks for everyone to update their system. Eventually this would lead to legislation from congress that would make it illegal for plugins to remove ads from pages. But while this is going on google would be loosing its main revenue source. Google would have to sell its stake it other companies just to have money to opperate. I feel that as the internet becomes the dominate media source, we have the potential to see massive digital wars by corporations. Google may control search. But what good is search if you can't profit from it.
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