It's on everyone's lips these days. (Well, everyone geeky, that it is.) Carl Icahn is mounting a proxy battle to force Yahoo back into an acquisition by Microsoft. And he's awfully prickly in his moves, that Carl. He's gotten Bill Miller and Gordon Crawford to change their tunes about the price -- putting their 12% of Yahoo on the table. He's nominated my favorite Facebook Friend™ Mark Cuban for the board -- the same Mark who became a billionaire through Yahoo's purchase of Broadcast.com. According to MSNBC, Icahn's tactics are quite simple: his proxy battles consist of buying up minority stakes in companies he thinks are badly run, then humiliating their management. He's won 10 of the 18 battles he's mounted. Prickly but effective, that Carl.
However, I'm noticing some interesting parallels to the presidential primaries in the press coverage over this brouhaha: The real battle is elsewhere, and its leader is currently getting a free pass. By "leader," I mean the John McCain of online business: Google, of course.
As Geoff Yang (no relation to Jerry) of Redpoint Ventures said: Someone has got to stop Google. Not that anyone is implying that Google is innately evil; Google just happens to be the proud holder of a dangerous amount of market share: one that threatens choice, and puts people in a potentially perilous spot when it comes to personal data.
When Microsoft held a similar position in the marketplace (remember those days?), I personally retaliated by refusing to give the company more than a sliver of my business. I've always had a Mac (or four), so operating system was not an issue. I bought Microsoft Office apps, did my browsing on Netscape (and now Firefox), purchased a PlayStation and a Blackberry. Now, after reading Cory Doctorow's perhaps not-so-tongue-in-cheek story for Radar magazine, "Scroogled," I'm doing the same with Google. You can have my search and online advertising activity, thank you, but you're not getting the apps, the feeds, the chat, the mobile OS, or the start page. (I do cop to using Gmail, but not for my primary email). Even so-called "Friend Connect" is a bit challenging: do I really want to make Google the primary holder of all my personal data? What if they suddenly truly became evil? What would be my recourse? The consequences have Facebook rather worried.
So, while Yahoo and Microsoft duke it out in a Clinton/Obama-esque battle, Google gets to pose as the good guy, the lone representative of all that is wise and powerful on the internets. Yahoo needs some help? Google rides to the rescue, and its all-encompassing mission -- organizing the world's information -- doesn't seem quite so threatening. Their straight-talk express puts everything in its proper little box. The algorithm keeps everything tidy. And Google keeps growing its market share.
Hey, Carl: maybe you can take on Google next? There's no buyer big enough, for sure, but I'd certainly like to see a little anarchy introduced into algorithm. Much like the war in Iraq, let's not assume that Google's market dominance is going to last 100 years - -perhaps we could do something about it a little sooner than that? My money's on you.
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