And yet there is no antitrust activity against Microsoft/MSN? Really? Uh, I can only speculate as to why.

Microsoft has been ruled against numerous times in European antitrust courts, just not here. Hmmm...

And isn't Google bigger than the federal government by now and achieved 'too big to fail' status? This may be a window-dressing case, similar to a lot of state-level investigations in Oregon.

I've been using Bing more and more lately, but that's just jumping from one monopolist to the next.

Crony capitalism and concentration of economic power have served to stifle innovation and impede economic growth while contributing to the construction of one asset bubble after another. It's time for a course reversal.

Microsoft might have had US antitrust enforcement against it had the Supreme Court not appointed George Bush president in 2000. That put an end to that. MSFT is now pretty much a failed monopolist — I don't know what that says about the antitrust policy change.

The suggestion that Google is "too big to fail" implies a gross misunderstanding of the very concept of "too big to fail". Google doesn't have enough employees or enough of a role in the world's financial and commerce systems to make any real difference whether it succeeds or fails. It could disappear this afternoon with no major consequence.

You're kidding.

Allan: you do realize that Google is far more than just a search engine with ads, right?

I think I know what Google does — at least in terms of what it discloses to the public. Someone would have to explain to me how the disappearance of all that would have global economic significance. I don't see it.

Apparently, many readers of this site don't know about Google's commercial offerings:

e.g.: Google Search Appliance: http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/gsa.html

Google Postini Email security:
http://www.google.com/postini/index.html

Google Apps for Business:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

Still it's nothing on the scale of Microsnot