Since nothing excites us more than open Internet warfare between competing billionaire geeks, today’s news that Microsoft and Yahoo have teamed up to go after search engine giant Google is positively riveting.
In fact, it’s literally all we can think about – well, other than the Narlof we just melted with Zodon’s ring on the third moon of Markalor. Because that was totally snarf!
Anyway, depending on who you ask, the new venture is run by “Microhoo” or “YaSoft.” We didn’t ask, so obviously we don’t know.
All we know is that the proposed pairing is going to receive plenty of federal scrutiny, since the government is so interested in preserving “competition.”
From the Wall Street Journal:
The new Internet-search venture between Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) is likely to face considerable scrutiny from federal antitrust regulators, according to government officials and analysts.
The Justice Department will look at the deal carefully to be sure it doesn’t harm competition by allowing two top Internet companies to team up.
Wait … “harm competition?”
Did the Justice Department really just say that with a straight face?
So let’s make sure we’ve got this straight … the U.S. government can enter any market or industry and set up a taxpayer-funded monopoly - but two private sector firms collaborating on a project would “harm competition?”
Sheesh. What blatant hypocrisy. Of course before you know it, the federal government will probably create its own search engine (at a cost of trillions to the taxpayer) that steers you exclusively to left leaning sites like Daily Kos – or La Socialista.
As for the current non-governmental search engines, we “Binged” the other day and liked it alright, but not nearly enough to stop Googling.
Apparently, we’re not alone. Google currently accounts for roughly 70-73% of all search engine traffic, with Yahoo (15-17%) and Bing (5-7%) coming in a distant second and third.
By SS Minnow July 30, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Didn’t Mircosoft just come out with a new search engine called Cuil?