Pity poor Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). As I discussed a few days back, Big Goo has actually tossed aside the "don't be evil" mode of biz, and is doing things the dirty old-fashioned way: trying to use government to protect its humongous lead in online search. (We'll save for another discussion Goo's reported, newfound habit of hiring K-Street lobbyists, a class of mammal well known for its devotion to non-evil causes.)
Google's most talked-about effort to get an edge from the government came when it asked Unkie Sam to come down on Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) beta of Internet Explorer 7, which, under certain circumstances, may designate Microsoft's MSN search engine as the browser's default search tool.
I say "may," because of course, IE is designed to let users add any number of competing search technologies from the likes of Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ:IACI) Ask.com, or news searches from CNET Networks (NASDAQ:CNET) or Gannett's (NYSE:GCI) USA Today. Moreover, it takes just a few clicks for users to designate any one of these as the default engine of choice. And Web watchers believe that taking the default spot is something akin to being handed a government intaglio press and a lot of blank green paper.
Alas, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't buy Google's argument. A Reuters story describes the DOJ's report last week, in which it concluded its look into the matter and decided that IE 7 "respects users' and (computer makers') default choices."
Now, if only Google played the same game. When I installed IE 7, somehow the overly-deferential Microsoft setup used Google as the default engine, though I could never remember giving any previous browser permission to do that. Some past-installed, easily-overlooked confirmation dialogue in a previous install of some Google doodad no doubt made that decision for me. Sound familiar? Sound smarmy? Sound ... evil?
If Google wants to rake in the humongous revenues for paid search, let it compete on its technology and service -- which I find lacking these days. And if investors want to rake in humongous gains on Google, let them take a hard look at Google's real moat (is there one?), not the iffy, fad and default-traffic bonanza that's been so much a part of the Google story.
The big dinosaur itself, Microsoft, is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. If you like unloved cash-producers, a free trial of the newsletter is available.
Seth Jayson is now nearly completely unGoogled. At the time of publication, he had shares of Microsoft but no positions in any other company mentioned. View his stock holdings and Fool profile here. CNET Networks is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers recommendation. Fool rules are here.
