What is Net Neutrality?

The new 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue report just came out from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

It has U.S. Internet advertising revenues for 2007 at $21.2b, up an impressive 26% from 2006 revenues of $16.9b, but nowhere near as impressive as Google's 56% overall revenue growth in 2007. 

With the pending Google-Yahoo outsourcing pact reportedly being negotiated, I thought it might be iluminating or instructive to see what share of U.S. Internet advertising revenues Google and Yahoo each have, and what they would have on a combined basis. 

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The 2008 World Competitiveness Yearbook just came out and the U.S. is ranked #1 in world competitiveness again -- for the fourteenth year in a row.

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With respect and affection to the memory of the late great Dr. Seuss.... 

Googlehoo mocks all the boo hoos over their ballyhooed Googlehoo coup.

Get a clue.

Googlehoo pooh-poohs a collusive coup between their crews.

It's no glue to screw you.

But, who knew it would be true, that Googlehoo would rue, that Justice could see through, Googlehoo's collusion boo-boo, and eventually sue?

Can we construe Mr. Icahn's Yahoo debut, and shareholder kung fu, as a rejection of the Googlehoo view?

Will Yahoo bid Googlehoo adieu, overcome the Microsoft taboo, and renew the review of the Microsoft view?

As Google and Yahoo continue to negotiate their search outsourcing pact, pesky competitive facts keep arising that suggest that such a deal is likely to eventually be found by antitrust officials to be illegal anti-competitive collusion.

• Yahoo is running an AP story that says that Google has now surpassed Yahoo as the #1 "most popular website in the United States according to Comscore."
• This is on top of Google and Yahoo being the #1 and #2 search providers in the U.S. and the leading competitors in the display advertising market, ad tools market and ad brokering market.

The operative question is not whether Google and Yahoo can craft an acceptable search advertising outsourcing pact that can pass antitrust muster, but whether the DOJ wants to encourage such intimate  and important business "cooperation" between Google, the dominant #1 in the market, and one of the only two companies that most consider to be Google's primary competition in multiple market segments.

I had to grin when I saw that two of net neutrality top supporters of net neutrality, eBay and Craig Newmark of Craig's list are reportedly in an legal fight and Craigslist is actually accusing eBay of anti-competitive behavior. 

I have to point out two ironies here:

First, eBay has 95% share of the online auction market. Yep, like Google in Europe, eBay is well past the unofficial maarket share level of what it takes to be declared a monopoly.

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