Sen. Mike Lee Is Right to Ask: Is Google a Problem?

To many conservatives, it may seem surprising that Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) would echo antitrust concerns in his aggressive questioning of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt during this week’s hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Isn’t that more of a lefty thing? Well, yes and no. The left indeed tends to be altogether too, er, liberal in its use of anti-trust laws to control big business. But conservatives also need to guard America against bad policies and domineering, unfair businesses practices that distort markets and ultimately punish consumers.

I believe this is where Sen. Lee was coming from in his line of argument against Schmidt.

Antitrust aside, Google has danced very close to the line in terms of profiting from other companies’ property rights, for example. In the eyes of many experts, Google also has violated consumer privacy. It has heavily influenced public policy to protect and enhance its bottom line at the expense of other companies. Surely it’s worth asking if Google’s business, lobbying and legal strategies pose threats free enterprise.

As Lee put it, “Whether or not Google formally qualifies as a monopoly under our antitrust laws, one thing is clear. Given its significant ability to steer e-commerce and the flow of online information, Google is in a position to help determine who will succeed and who will fail on the Internet.” American’s have a right to be concerned about the implications of Lee’s observation.

I do not begrudge Google its success. It is an amazing company with a superior search offering and a clever business model. At the same time, Google has built its market dominance and cash position, at least in part, by appropriating, some might say misappropriating, the copyrighted content of others. For instance, Google “scrapes” content from other websites and sells advertising based on that scraped content. Google has also become dominant on mobile phones with its Android operating system, which arguably uses patented technology owned by other companies. Google has also played fast and loose with trademark protection–selling ads around other companies’ trademarks.

Most notoriously, Google generated significant revenue from illegal pharmaceutical advertising–a practice to which it admitted and forfeited $500 million to avoid prosecution.

Finally, Google is altogether too close to liberal politicians and political causes for my personal tastes. There is no crime in that, to be sure. But we need look no further than the front page headlines regarding the Solyndra scandal to know that when politicians and crony capitalists become too familiar, we the people are the victims.

There is no doubt that we should be skeptical of antitrust enforcement and other marketplace regulation, for that matter. But faulting Lee for speaking out against Google is misguided. We should not fault the messenger, but instead examine the clear message. No entity–government or corporation–should be in a position to threaten free enterprise or property rights. It is altogether appropriate for elected leaders to ask questions.