Google Books Deal Anti-Trust Inquiry Confirmed by Feds

Anti-trust investigation to proceed

[Marcia]

NY Times article:

U.S. Inquiry Is Confirmed Into Google Books Deal [nytimes.com]

In a letter to the federal judge charged with reviewing the settlement, the Justice Department said it was reviewing concerns that the agreement could violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.

[edited by: Marcia at 4:51 am (utc) on July 6, 2009]

[Marcia]

My take that is that it's completely unfounded; by legal definition, by the strict interpretation of the letter of the law. Per Wikipedia:

Sherman Antitrust Act [en.wikipedia.org]

The Sherman Act was not specifically intended to prevent the dominance of an industry by a specific company, despite misconceptions to the contrary. According to Senator George Hoar, an author of the bill, any company that "got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could" would not be in violation of the act.

Question for Google: Why are you doing it?
What could Google say? Because we can!

If others can't it's their loss. It isn't anti-competitive, it's anti-capability.

IMHO: Case closed.

[2clean]

Wikipedia as a source?

[Gomvents]

Google can't break the law simply because the logistics of stopping Google is difficult. That's been Google's defense the whole time... basically like "try to stop us". Doesn't make stuff legal

[signor_john]

We've discussed the Google Books settlement at length in at least two other threads here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

[loner]

"Wikipedia as a source?"

Hilarious.