Google and More Antitrust Issues

The Italian government is currently checking Google for antitrust violations. Several newspapers in Italy are claiming that when they told Google not to list their content on Google News, Google also delisted their results from the rest of the Google search engine.

Google have been called a scraper among other things. But looks like the news industry have had a lot more to say on the matter than many other industries. But could that be because print media is dying off? It seems that they won't go with out a fight.

While it hasn't been proven that Google did actually delist these sites I don't see what the problem is really. Much like Microsoft having to remove IE from Windows. Why? Don't get me wrong, I'm really not a fan of either of these companies, but it's their index/OS, so let them do what they want. If you don't like it, don't support them. As an end user it's that simple. If they really are a monopoly, then let the government take care of it... (yeah, I know can't really rely on them)

While I don't really see the problem, I'm going to hope that Google do feel the hard end of that stick. If only to feel what it's like when everyone want's your blood - kinda like they did to Microsoft (payback's a bitch - ain't it?).

Google OS

Well it's hot news right now, trending at Number 1 on Twitter, Google have announced that they are going to be introducing the Google Chrome OS. Yay... or perhaps not?

*Okay, a quick disclaimer, I'm not a Google Fanboy. I do believe them to be evil and slowly we're all letting them take over the world.*

Okay, so that said. This is fantastic news for those in the netbook industry. Not only do these products need to be cheaper, the need to be running on fewer resources. In theory then, why not simply build a system that requires most of the hard processing to be done by another machine? The internet allows exactly that to happen. With the multitude of other free offerings from Google (like Maps, Docs and Gmail to name a few) you already have a good deal of what you already need by simply logging into your Google account. Could this be an on boot setting?

Okay, all that excitement. Should Microsoft be worried? I wouldn't think so right now. While they've not exactly set the world alight with their netbook offerings (I believe this to be the most competitive market at this time) I think they're more interested in what Google will offer than fear what they will offer at this time.

One part that kind of makes me wonder however is, "How will Google make money out of this deal?" Well if you're doing all of your computing online then you'll need to have a steady stream of ads, right? Google are an advertising company the bottom line is how they show a profit.

I'd turn this about and argue that they can't really create a true OS. If they did, they would once again offer choices to the user. Choice of programs they run, perhaps Open Office? Choice of Browser, perhaps Internet Explorer. But more importantly and even while you have a browser you'll always (we hope) have this choice, the choice in search engine, perhaps Ask.com. You see, if you automatically log into Google, all of those products offered by Google offer Google Search (that's a lot of Google).

Oh... and isn't locking your browser into your OS a bit of a problem? Okay, I know that there are many legal points there that I no doubt just don't get... and personally I think Microsoft should have won that one. I don't see Google offering a full OS for that reason.

There are tons of pro's and con's at this time for both Windows (Gasp! yes... that's right pro's too) and another type of OS. But if I were Microsoft I would simply keep working on Windows7 and IE8. Bing has already impressed me, so I'm really expecting much from them this time round - the first time in a very, very... long time!

The battle may not yet have begun, but have the Chrome Wars just started?