As if Google didn’t have enough trouble in Europe, the Federal Trade Commission has opened a second front against the company. The FTC’s concern – that Google’s proposed merger with AdMob would allow it to dominate in mobile phone advertising – has little to do with the EU’s complaint about the anti-competitive impact of Google’s search technology. But it does illustrate a very real problem of whether regulators should challenge the power amassed by super-successful companies in markets driven by rapidly changing technology, or to wait for dominant players to be toppled by The Next Big Thing.
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Microsoft Redux? |
Professor Dieter Helm (Oxford) is a very fine fly fisherman, and an even better economist. If you haven’t done so, take a look at his new book “The Carbon Crunch: How We Are Getting Climate Change Wrong — and How to Fix It” for a bit of unconventional wisdom. He argues that politicians and the general public have not shown any real interest in addressing climate change. Helm argues that places like Europe should focus on setting a price for carbon that would cover consumption (and not just production), and that fracking could be a good “bridge” technology for reducing consumption of coal. The book is readable and insightful for those interested in the inside track on climate policy. 
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