Google squares off with its Capitol Hill critics

[mandy]

In response to prodding by consumer activists, some government officials—notably Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat—have begun to ask: Does Google, which today is among America’s ten richest corporations, with a market value of just over two hundred billion dollars, have too much power? (ExxonMobil, valued at just under five hundred billion, is No. 1.) Unlike Microsoft, which in 2000 was found guilty of anti-competitive behavior, a finding upheld in a federal appellate court, Google has not been charged with violating any laws. But there has never been a company whose influence extended so far over the media landscape, and which had the ability to disrupt so many existing business models. And its competitors share a vague worry that Google is more or less out to rule the world...

7 page article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/...ct_auletta