Parsing Google: Don't Trust the Old Bully, Just the New One

Not long after Jack Flack translated Microsoft's Yahoo! press release, Google posted its own statement requiring significant translation.

Google: Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

JF Translation: This is our lawyer speaking, and so there must be serious legal implications to the deal. And besides, we don't want Larry, Serge or Eric to get their shoes muddy... yet.

Google: The openness of the Internet is what made Google -- and Yahoo! -- possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It's what makes the Internet such an exciting place.

JF Translation: We believe in magic. Money -- and especially control -- have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it.

Google: So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions.

JF Translation: We still have occasional nightmares of Gates in a Darth Vader costume chasing us around in our Yoda jammies.

Google: This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.

JF Translation: Only cool monopolists like us should be able to go shopping, not the goofy, mean ones.

Google: Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

JF Translation: And hey, that's our role now.

Google: Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?

JF Translation: They are highly competitive people, and thus might stand a chance making a too-little, too-late transaction actually work.

Google: In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers.

JF Translation: We're going to make sure they have to shed assets to get the deal approved.

Google: This hostile bid was announced on Friday, so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed.

JF Translation: We're looking at suing, or at least filing a complaint with the DOJ.

Google: We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture.

JF Translation: And our cult-ure shall prevail.

Google: We believe that the interests of Internet users come first -- and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored.

JF Translation: We will support the purchase of Yahoo! by anyone other than Microsoft. Capiche, Jerry?

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