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COMPETITION ON THE INTERNET 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

TASK FORCE ON COMPETITION POLICY 

AND ANTITRUST LAWS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 15, 2008 

Serial No. 110–193 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Minority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

TASK FORCE ON COMPETITION POLICY AND ANTITRUST LAWS

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Ex Officio 

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Minority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

JULY 15, 2008 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Task Force on Competition Policy and 

Antitrust Laws ..................................................................................................... 1 

The Honorable Steve Chabot, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Ohio, and Ranking Member, Task Force on Competition Policy and 

Antitrust Laws ..................................................................................................... 2 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust 

Laws ...................................................................................................................... 3 

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ex Officio Member, Task Force on Competition Policy and 

Antitrust Laws ..................................................................................................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Michael J. Callahan, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and 

Secretary, Yahoo! Inc. 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 9 

Mr. Brad Smith, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Microsoft Corporation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 21 

Mr. David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and 

Chief Legal Officer, Google Inc. 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 35 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 38 

Mr. Frank Pasquale, Professor, Seton Hall University School of Law 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 46 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 48 

Mr. Tim Carter, President and CEO, Askthebuilder.Com 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 62 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 64 

Mr. David Sable, Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, Wunderman 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 68 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 70 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust Laws ........................................................................... 5 

(1) 

COMPETITION ON THE INTERNET 

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

TASK FORCE ON COMPETITION POLICY

AND ANTITRUST LAWS

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC. 

The Task Force met, pursuant to notice, at 1:41 p.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Conyers, 

Jr. (Chairman of the Task Force) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Waters, 

Cohen, Sutton, Wasserman Schultz, Smith, Sensenbrenner, Goodlatte, Chabot, Cannon, Keller, Issa and Feeney. 

Staff Present: Anant Raut, Majority Counsel; Matt Morgan, Majority Staff Assistant; and Stewart Jefferies, Minority Counsel. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Committee will come to order. 

We are delighted that all six of witness are as distinguished and 

recognized and well-known and favorably received in the Congress 

as they are. 

This Antitrust Task Force is concerned about competition on the 

Internet because this technology has changed the way people interact with the world around them, and what started as a research 

project in the Department of Defense 40 years ago has now become 

not just a pervasive element of our society, but has worldwide implications. Over a billion people use the Internet. Seventy-one percent of all Americans use the Internet. Every year, we send in this 

country somewhere in the neighborhood of three trillion e-mails; 

and it is also quite lucrative. 

But, today, we have three of the most significant players on the 

Internet testifying before us: Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, each one 

of whom dominates a different aspect of the Internet. A half million 

users come to Yahoo’s Web pages, Google has become synonymous 

with on-line research, and Microsoft continues to be the most dominant software company on Earth. 

For the last 6 months, Microsoft and Yahoo have been in frustrating negotiations. Microsoft initially attempted to purchase 

Yahoo and was not favorably received. Last month, Yahoo and 

Google reached an agreement to display Google ads on Yahoo Web 

pages. Microsoft had a response for that. They brought in Carl 

Ichan to try buying Yahoo and break it up. 

Given how these powerful companies are in any consolidation 

has raised the potential of anti-competitive effects. The Department of Justice is scrutinizing the Google-Yahoo deal. So are dozVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:13 Jan 16, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\ATRUST3\071508\43524.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
2 

ens of attorneys, State attorneys across the country, and Attorney 

Generals. And so we come here this afternoon to consider what impact the proposed Yahoo-Google deal could have on competition. 

For their part, Google and Yahoo note that their transaction is 

nonexclusive and that any company, including Microsoft, is free to 

pursue a similar arrangement. 

But then you need to ask why is it that the Members of this 

Committee cannot be trusted to see the signed agreement, and why 

we were offered access to the agreement, but only if we viewed it 

at a law firm with no notes allowed and a signed non-disclosure 

agreement? 

By contrast, the Committee was given more ready access to the 

documents surrounding the President’s terrorist surveillance program. Every Member was allowed access. We were allowed the 

right to review it. We were allowed to take notes. We weren’t 

forced to sign any agreements of non-disclosure. 

And so I would ask the distinguished counsel for Yahoo to reconsider how these things should be worked on with the Committee 

on Judiciary, as friendly a group of Members of Congress as I’ve 

ever encountered. 

And then we need to consider the larger competitive reality of 

the Internet, what the competitive landscape would look like if 

Microsoft is ultimately successful in acquiring Yahoo or, looking at 

it differently, would it be wise to allow a company that controls 

more than 90 percent of the operating system market and 73 percent of the browser market to combine forces with the largest seller 

of display advertising on the Internet? Would the combined company simply serve as a counterweight to Google or would that allow 

them to leverage their market power into other aspects of the 

Internet? 

And so this Committee, the Antitrust Task Force of the House 

Judiciary Committee, is pleased to have all of you here to join in 

this discussion. 

I turn now to our Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot of Ohio, for his 

comments. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to thank you for holding this important hearing 

today and also to thank our witnesses for taking the time out of 

their busy schedules and also being with us here this afternoon. I 

will be brief so that we can get on with the witnesses as we have 

a very distinguished panel here. 

It seems a bit redundant to talk about the rise in the Internet 

use and its increased importance to consumers and businesses. 

Most of us use the Internet today, but there are a couple of points 

that I think are worth noting, particularly in light of today’s hearing topic. 

First, search engines are playing a bigger and bigger role shaping the information made available to consumers and businesses. 

Through paid listings, search engines are dictating search results 

at increasing rates. These listings set the parameters for the type 

of information to which consumers have access. 

This leads me to my second point, and that is the need to maintain competition in the on-line advertising industry to keep search 

3 

engines operating as a neutral tool, as the Boston Globe would put 

it. 

We can see the influence that advertising has on Internet search 

results through the revenue generated in the industry. In 2007, online advertising generated more than $8 billion; and it is expected 

to more than double in just the next few years. 

As with the success of any industry, the on-line advertising industry is shifting. Google’s proposed advertising agreement with 

Yahoo is just one of a number of recent moves that has the potential to change the market quite dramatically. 

Our role on this Task Force is to examine those shifts and the 

impact that they could have on competition and on consumers. Like 

I have said in previous hearings, the heavy hand of government 

does not belong in the marketplace. However, when consumers are 

impacted as a result of anti-competitive practices, we are obligated 

to weigh in. This hearing will hopefully shed some light on the 

facts and just where we stand in this particular proposal and what 

should be done about it. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back 

the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chabot. 

A senior Member of the Committee on Judiciary and a Chairwoman in her own right, the gentlelady from California, Zoe 

Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. 

I would just like to welcome so many people from my constituency in Silicon Valley. It is great to have you here, and I hope we 

will have a very useful and interesting discussion. 

I am mindful that one of the key elements of analysis for antitrust is the barriers to entry to a particular type of endeavor. And 

I remember I was first elected in ’94, took office January 4th of 

1995. At that time, Jerry Yang was still in the dorm room at Stanford. I don’t think Sergey had even been admitted yet. So I remember going to Google pre-IPO. Eric Schmidt was so excited about it. 

The Google team had built their own servers with stuff from weird 

stuff and fries. 

And so that was just less than a decade ago. So things move 

quickly in the Internet, and we are going to keep that in our minds 

as we evaluate all of the enticing and interesting issues that are 

before us. 

But one of the exciting things about representing the district 

that I do is that there are so many smart people who are so creative; and we can’t even think of the next thing that they are going 

to invent that is going to be changing the way we are able to be 

effective and productive people, not only in Congress, but Americans, really citizens throughout the world who are well served by 

all the cool stuff being invented in the Valley. 

I just wanted to say that, Mr. Chairman; and I thank you for 

having this hearing. I look forward to the further proceedings, and 

I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Lamar Smith, Ranking Member of the full Committee, from Texas. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

4 

I don’t think it was intentional, but I notice that my prepared remarks pretty much track your opening remarks as well, with the 

possible exception of your reference to the Administration surveillance policy. 

Today, we will hear testimony from individuals associated with 

some of the most famous names of the technology era: Google, 

Yahoo and Microsoft. Together, they have revolutionized the way 

that we work, communicate and find information. 

Recently, two of these companies have been involved in a highly 

publicized battle for the future of Yahoo, one of the pioneers of the 

Internet as we know it today. Microsoft initially made a bid to acquire all of Yahoo and was rejected by Yahoo’s board. Microsoft 

later made a revised offer, which was also rejected. Recent news reports indicate that Microsoft has made a third offer together with 

investor Carl Ichan, who is engaged in a proxy fight with Yahoo’s 

board of directors. 

In the face of this corporate intrigue, on June 12th, Google and 

Yahoo announced a deal that will allow Google to place some of its 

search-based advertising on Yahoo’s Web pages. The amount of advertising that Yahoo outsources to Google is at Yahoo’s sole discretion. 

In addition, Yahoo and Google agreed to enable their respective 

instant messaging services to interoperate. A user of Google’s IM 

service will be able to contact someone on Yahoo’s IM service and 

vice versa. This agreement is not exclusive and allows Yahoo to 

enter into similar agreements with other advertising providers, including Microsoft. In addition, Yahoo will maintain relationships 

with its own advertising customers and will continue to rely exclusively on its own advertising program outside of the U.S. and Canada. 

Microsoft and on-line advertisers have raised concerns that this 

arrangement will give Google a dominant share of the search advertising market. There has already been considerable consolidation in the on-line advertising world with Google acquiring 

DoubleClick and Microsoft and Yahoo purchasing their own advertising platforms. 

The operative question here is whether on-line search advertising 

is a separate market. If so, then this deal implicates the number 

one player, Google, which has about 70 percent of on-line search 

advertising, and number two player Yahoo, which has about 20 

percent. Microsoft is a distant third. 

While the deal is not exclusive, it is important to determine 

whether this arrangement will cause Yahoo to become more or less 

competitive with Google in page search advertising. Also, there is 

much that remains unknown about how this deal will affect on-line 

advertising and whether it will encourage any competitive behavior. 

I hope the hearing will address some of these uncertainties, so 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. We will include everyone else’s statements. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson Lee follows:] 

5 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND MEMBER, TASK FORCE ON COMPETI- TION POLICY AND ANTITRUST LAWS

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership in convening today’s very important hearing on the state of competition in the internet. I would also like to thank 

the ranking member, the Honorable Louie Gohmert, and welcome our panelists. I 

look forward to their testimony. 

This hearing will address the specter of growing concentration in our most powerful new form of media: The Internet. Today, we’re already seeing rapid consolidation 

in the various industries that provide the American people the news and information they need to be responsible citizens and voters. We continue to see consolidation in traditional forms of media, such as newspapers, radio, and TV stations. And 

now, we are also seeing consolidation in newer forms of media, such as satellite 

radio and the Internet. 

This development troubles me, because America thrives on the freedom and the 

ability of its people to hear and consider different points of view, no matter how unpopular, and to make up their own minds. If the availability of news, information, 

and different viewpoints is controlled by too few entities, this precious freedom at 

the foundation of our nation is put into jeopardy. 

Today, the Internet is fast becoming the prime source of news and information 

for many people. And indeed, many of these people who look for their news and information on the Web start first by typing in a keyword in a search engine. More 

likely than not, that search engine is Google. 

Imagine my concern, then, when I learn that Google, which controls about 70% 

of total search queries, now wants to partner with its closest competitor, Yahoo!, 

which controls about 20% of all search queries. That would mean, essentially, that 

one company would control nearly all of the search queries made by Internet users 

today. 

This is a lot of power to give to one company. This company now will have the 

power to tell us what content to see—and potentially, what to believe. 

Google is fast on its way to controlling the Internet. Not only does it control the 

majority of search queries that Internet users, but it also controls the purse 

strings—in the form of search advertising revenues. Those are the dollars that 

search engines like Google get from advertisers who want to reach the millions of 

Internet users who type in those keywords to find content and sites on the Internet. 

Today, Google takes in 70% to 75% of search advertising revenues—the advertising which helps fund the creation of content and services on the Internet that 

we enjoy today. With Yahoo!, Google-Yahoo! would control some 90% of search advertising revenues. 

The only way to ensure that one company does not control what Americans read, 

hear, or see is through marketplace competition and choice. The American people 

need alternatives to Google from which they can access content and services on the 

Internet. Only through competitive alternatives can we ensure that we can have access to diverse points of view that are so important to the functioning of our nation. 

The issue of broadband is vital to communities across the country, and yet is often 

overlooked for communities of color. Every American should be focused on it right 

now—especially given the current economic crisis and the overwhelming investments that are being made in communities across the country. 

It has been widely reported that the recent Google and Yahoo! Agreement will 

provide new opportunities for Americans. But as I sharing today with you, there are 

two sides to every story. I hope that we can better understand what this merger 

will mean for the state of competition on the internet. 

On June 13, 2008, Google announced that it reached an agreement that gives 

Yahoo! the ability to use Google’s search and contextual advertising technology 

through its advertising programs. Under the agreement, Yahoo! has the option to 

display Google ads alongside its own natural search results in the U.S. and Canada. 

In addition, Yahoo! can serve contextually targeted ads on its U.S. and Canadian 

web properties as well as on its current publisher partner sites while operating its 

own search engine, web properties and advertising services. 

In addition, Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services bringing easier and broader communication to 

users. It is expected that this agreement will provide Yahoo! with the opportunity 

to deliver more relevant ads to users and provide advertisers and publishers with 

better advertising technology to aid their businesses. 

This non-exclusive agreement allows Yahoo! to engage in similar agreements with 

other advertising providers. Also, Yahoo! will maintain relationships with its own 

advertising customers and continue to rely exclusively on its own advertising proVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:13 Jan 16, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\ATRUST3\071508\43524.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
6 

gram outside of the U.S. and Canada. The agreement lasts up to ten years: a 4- 

year initial term and two 3-year renewals at Yahoo!’s option. Financial terms between the two companies were not disclosed. 

Economics teaches us that in a competitive market, high profits are a signal for 

‘‘would be’’ rivals to enter the market and ‘‘compete away’’ excessive earnings. This 

has not happened in the Google situation. Google’s profitability has remained high. 

In terms of percent return on invested capital, Google was 8.5 times more profitable 

than Comcast; in terms of percent return on equity, Google was 3.5 times more profitable than Time Warner; in terms of percent return on assets, Google was over 6 

times more profitable than eBay or Verizon; in terms of price to cash flow, Google 

was 5 times larger than the top four Internet Service Providers and twice the major 

drug companies—Merck, Abbott, and Bristol Myers; and in terms of price to earning 

ratio, Google was 4 times the size of Exxon. Google’s profitability exceeds other web 

companies, such as Yahoo!, eBay, and Amazon, and other ISPs and other major corporations, such as Exxon and Merck. In short, Google stands alone. 

Google’s marketshare has only grown. This suggests a lack of competition and 

competitive entry. Beyond it’s sheer market power, there is evidence that Google 

might be using its dominant market share to harm competition. The evidence lies 

in Google’s manipulation of the placement of its ads. For example, Google’s policy 

council Alan Davidson admitted to Multichannel News (6/12/2006) that consumers 

using a particular ‘‘search term’’ would see an organization’s ad calling for the regulation of Google’s potential competitors. This admission was also conceded by Google 

Spokesperson Jon Murchinson in Technology Daily PM (6/13/2006). The DC Examiner reported in October 2007 that Senator Susan Collins’ ads were banned by 

Google; ads that were intended to defend her against attacks by a group sharing 

mutual policy interests with Google. The evidence might suggest that Google can 

direct consumers to ads that are favorable to its public policy positions over paying 

advertisers. 

To stem market power, public policies need to encourage inter-industry rivalry, 

IT investment, and increased consumer choice, including the market for search and 

online advertising. The question becomes what steps should the Members of Congress take to correct the state of competition on the internet? 

Therefore, I urge not only the members of this task force to scrutinize the proposed Google-Yahoo! deal closely, but also our federal regulators. Thank you, and 

I yield the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. I am happy to welcome all of you. I am especially 

sympathetic toward the nonlawyers that are here as witnesses. 

David Sable, Tim Carter, a hands-on type of person, Professor 

Pasquale, Attorney Drummond, Attorney Smith. 

Mr. CONYERS. We will begin with Mr. Michael Callahan, Esquire, 

Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Yahoo. You can begin. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL J. CALLAHAN, EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT, GENERAL COUNSEL AND SECRETARY, YAHOO! 

INC. 

Mr. CALLAHAN. Is this on? It is. Thank you. 

Thank you Chairman Conyers, Ranking Member Chabot and 

Members of the Task Force. My name is Michael Callahan, and I 

am Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Yahoo. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss the dynamic 

and growing Internet advertising space and the commercial agreement between Google and Yahoo. 

Yahoo welcomes this hearing; and we are confident that the more 

one learns about this agreement the more clear it becomes that it 

is good for competition, good for consumers, good for advertisers 

and, yes, good for Yahoo. 

The purpose of this commercial arrangement and the intent of 

Yahoo moving forward is to help make our company an even 

7 

stronger competitor to Google, to Microsoft and to others in the dynamic and rapidly growing on-line advertising world. 

As I am sure you know, this has been an interesting time for our 

company, to say the least. While I don’t want to dwell on the very 

public proxy fight in which we are currently engaged, I want to 

spend a brief moment on it because it will give you a flavor for how 

intensely competitive the search business has become. 

All of the companies at this table are laser focused on being significant players in search. With this business arrangement, Yahoo 

will continue to execute on its long-term corporate strategy. Microsoft, on the other hand, has turned to activist shareholder Carl 

Ichan, in the apparent hope that this will force a fire sale of 

Yahoo’s core strategic search business. 

Our priority is to build value for our stockholders. That continues 

to be our core mission. What we will not do, however, is allow our 

business to be dismantled or sold off piecemeal on terms that 

would be disadvantageous to Yahoo stockholders and to the market 

as a whole. 

I trust that this will give you context to understand the extraordinary value we all place in the paid search portion of the on-line 

advertising business and how very competitive it is and will remain 

and why there are so many misconceptions advanced by our competitors about the agreement we have entered into with Google. 

Let’s start by reviewing what this agreement is not as well as 

what it is. 

First, this is not a merger. Far from it. We will increasingly compete with Google and they with us. This is a commercial arrangement between two companies who will remain autonomous and 

compete aggressively in search and display advertising, in mobile, 

in news, in e-mail, in finance. You name it. Yahoo is here to stay; 

and we intend to compete across countless platforms, including 

search, for years to come. 

Second, Yahoo not exiting search, nor are we ceding any portion 

of that space to Google. This will not, as some claim, result in 

Google controlling 90 percent of the search business. To the contrary, we will continue to do everything we can to grow our share 

and also strengthen our competitiveness in search and search advertising. This deal is just one more important step along that 

path; and, with all due respect to Google, we have every intention 

of fighting them and winning in this and in other areas for years 

to come. 

Furthermore, this agreement does not affect ‘‘algorithmic’’ search 

at all. When a user comes to Yahoo and performs a search, the algorithmic results returned will still be entirely Yahoo’s. Yahoo 

serves close to a quarter of the searches that consumers make 

today, and we expect to be serving that or more after the deal is 

implemented. 

Third, this agreement is nonexclusive and gives Yahoo complete 

discretion over if, how, where and when we will choose to show 

Google advertising on our sites. There are no minimum requirements either, and Yahoo is free to make similar deals with other 

companies. In other words, this gives Yahoo the option to show 

Google ads but does not tie our hands in any important respects. 

8 

Fourth, the claim some have made that Yahoo and Google are 

price fixing is entirely false. Prices for search terms are set by open 

and fair market-based auctions, and advertisers only pay when 

consumers click on the ad. This agreement is truly win-win. It benefits consumers, advertisers, publishers and Yahoo. Consumers will 

now get more relevant advertising on Yahoo’s site. Advertisers will 

reach more consumers. Yahoo will become an even stronger competitor in the broad advertising marketplace. 

To put this agreement is perspective, it is helpful to recall until 

2004 Yahoo completely outsourced algorithmic and sponsored 

search to a variety of companies, including an algorithmic search 

to Google. And, more recently, other companies have outsourced 

their search functions to Yahoo. In fact, Microsoft outsourced its 

sponsored search to Yahoo just a few years ago and still does so 

in some places around the world. 

In 2004, Yahoo made the strategic decision to bring algorithmic 

and sponsored search in-house, and that decision has not changed. 

Since then, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to improve our search products and compete better in the marketplace. 

For example, just last week, we announced BOSS, an open platform build-your-own search service, which we believe will unleash 

a wave of innovation. And our efforts to create a robust, open exchange should bring publishers and advertisers together are also 

well on their way. These efforts are consistent with our complete 

commitment to continued growth in search and display advertising. 

With the additional operating cash flow from this agreement, anticipated to be between $250 million and $450 million in the first 

year, Yahoo will accelerate our innovation and better compete 

against Google, Microsoft and others in the on-line advertising 

marketplace. 

Over the coming weeks, Yahoo will continue to work with our advertisers, our users, outside groups and government authorities to 

explain this agreement and address any questions about the facts 

of the arrangement. We have kept the United States Department 

of Justice informed every step of the way and will continue to cooperate with them and with this Task Force. We are confident that 

the more one knows about this agreement the more it becomes 

clear that it will increase competition, stimulate creativity, benefit 

consumers, advertisers and the on-line advertising industry overall. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to appear here 

today; and I look period to answering any questions the Task Force 

has. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Callahan follows:] 

9 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. CALLAHAN


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Mr. CONYERS. Brad Smith is the Senior Vice President, General 

Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Microsoft; and we welcome 

you today. 

TESTIMONY OF BRAD SMITH, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, GENERAL COUNSEL AND CORPORATE SECRETARY, MICROSOFT 

CORPORATION 

Mr. SMITH. It is my pleasure to be here on behalf of Microsoft 

this afternoon. 

I will be the first to acknowledge that Microsoft is not disinterested when it comes to the questions before this Committee. No 

competitor ever is. But we do know a lot about this market, and 

we’re hoping to share our knowledge in the hopes that will help 

sharpen the focus on the important questions that are being considered. 

The principal question before this Committee today is not what 

might have happened or what could happen, it is what has happened. And so far only one thing has happened. There has been an 

agreement between Google and Yahoo. The question therefore is 

whether it is lawful, whether it is appropriate for the largest company in the search advertising market to, in effect, take control of 

pricing of 90 percent of the market for search advertising by entering into an agreement with its second-largest competitor. 

The technology is complicated, but the antitrust issues are, in 

fact, straightforward. It really starts with the role that search is 

playing today. 

Search is the gateway to the Web. For many Americans, using 

a PC on the Internet today involves sitting down in front of a computer, typing in a search request, getting the information that 

comes back and using that to decide what to look at, what to read, 

even what to buy. 

Search advertising has become an important part of the fuel for 

all of the free content that is on the Internet. It has become a very 

substantial market. Search advertising is projected to become a $16 

billion market by the year 2011. Now that will start to approach 

the $20 billion that is spent today on all advertising on all cable 

television in the country combined. 

Now we are, in our view, at an historically important moment in 

time for the future of the Internet. Because right now, when it 

comes to search advertising, there are only three principal companies. Google has a market share of 70 percent. Yahoo has a market 

share of 20 percent. Microsoft has a share of less than 10 percent. 

So the fundamental question is, what will this agreement between 

Google and Yahoo mean for the future of competition on the Internet? 

We believe it will mean four things: 

First, it will lead to an unprecedented level of concentration 

when it comes to search advertising. It will bring together 90 percent of the market. In the history of advertising, no entity has ever 

been in a position to control pricing of 90 percent of the market— 

not in television, not in radio, not in publishing. It shouldn’t happen on the Internet. 

Second, this agreement will mean fewer choices for advertisers. 

Today, there are advertisers who may choose to buy ads on Yahoo 

20 

in addition to or instead of ads on Google. But under this agreement, Yahoo is going to send some of these ads to Google instead, 

and these advertisers are going to have no choice but to do business with Google. 

Third, this agreement will increase prices. Studies released just 

this morning predict that prices will go up by as much as 22 percent. 

Yahoo has been clear in the information they filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They said this will enable them 

to better monetize ads. That is a fancy way of saying this will lead 

to a price increase. And that price increase, to the tune of $800 million of additional revenue, is going to be paid for out of the pockets 

of American businesses, large and small, across the country. 

Fourth and finally, this agreement has important implications 

for on-line privacy. If search is the gateway to the Web—and most 

people agree that it is—then this agreement puts Google in the position of starting to have access to as much as 90 percent of the 

on-line searches that are conducted. In the same way that that is 

unprecedented when it comes to economics, it is unprecedented 

when it comes to privacy. 

If this agreement takes effect, this Congress may not need to 

enact a new Federal privacy policy. We will have a national privacy 

policy. It will simply be Google’s privacy policy. 

We recognize that the Internet is very dynamic. We recognized 

the technology is changing. But for 118 years, since the enactment 

of the Sherman Act, one rule of the road has remained constant. 

We are all encouraged to work hard to succeed. We are all encouraged to innovate faster and offer customers a better product. But 

no one is permitted to buy their way to 90 percent of the market 

by entering into this type of agreement with their single largest 

competitor. The question before this Congress, and indeed before 

the Department of Justice and the country, is whether that principle should be abandoned now. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. CONYERS. You know, I never felt so sorry for poor little old 

Microsoft. 

Mr. SMITH. We appreciate your sympathy. 

Mr. CONYERS. I am stunned by the fact that these big predator 

competitors are about to swallow you guys up. You put this in a 

completely—— 

Mr. SMITH. Well, the good news is we do have some other businesses that are still doing pretty well. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, 20 years ago, if General Motors had 

said that Toyota was going to become the number two and perhaps 

number one auto company, what would you and Detroit have said 

then? Would you have felt sorry for General Motors when they predicted that? 

Mr. CONYERS. I am busy staying sorry for General Motors right 

now, my friend. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

21 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRAD SMITH


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Mr. CONYERS. David Drummond is a cultural aficionado of music. 

His brother is a professional musician known to many of us. But 

Attorney Drummond is Senior Vice President for Corporate Development and is the Chief Legal Officer of Google. He leads Google 

teams for legal, government relations, corporate development and 

new business development. 

We welcome you here today. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID C. DRUMMOND, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT AND CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER, GOOGLE INC. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Thank you, Chairman Conyers, thanks, Ranking Member Chabot, Members of the Task Force. Thank you especially, Chairman Conyers, for reminding everyone how little talent 

I have compared to my brother. And I am very glad to be here 

today. 

The Internet is a dynamic and competitive environment, and 

that is due to the openness that has been its hallmark from its inception. Our nonexclusive commercial agreement with Yahoo will 

maintain and expand that competition. It creates new efficiencies 

that will benefit consumers, advertisers and publishers, while protecting privacy and spurring innovation. 

When Yahoo chooses to use our technology, consumers will see 

more relevant ads that better connect them to the products and 

services that they are interested in. Advertisers will benefit from 

better ad matching capability, improving the way they that they 

reach customers. And Web publishers who place ads on Yahoo’s 

sites, Yahoo ads on their sites, will also see more revenue from better ad matching. That’s why large and small advertisers, ad agencies and publishers have expressed their support for this deal, including Publicis, Digitas, Overstock, and even Microsoft’s own inhouse ad firm, Avenue A Razorfish, who recently called it, ‘‘good 

news for advertisers.’’ 

The fundamental point I would like to make today is that this 

agreement promotes ongoing competition and on-line advertising. 

Let there be no doubt about this point. Google and Yahoo will remain fierce competitors in search and on-line advertising and many 

other products and services. 

Yahoo has said that it will reinvest the revenue from this agreement into improving its search engine and improving its other 

services. This continued competition will help fuel innovation that’s 

good for the Internet users, good for the Internet and good for the 

economy. 

Now the fact that this arrangement is made between competitors 

is not unusual. Commercial arrangements between competitors are 

commonplace on line and in many other industries. As Mr. Callahan said, amongst the parties at this table, we have had such relationships in the past, and they are ongoing. I trust authorities 

have recognized that customers can benefit from these arrangements, especially when one company has technical expertise that 

enables another to improve its product. 

We are also excited that, as part of this agreement, Yahoo will 

make its instant messaging network interoperable with Google’s. 

That a big step forward in making instant messaging more like eVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:13 Jan 16, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\ATRUST3\071508\43524.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
36 

mail, with users able to communicate against different platforms 

more easily. 

Now, I would like to clear up a few things about the agreement. 

First, unlike the other alternatives that are being discussed, such 

as Microsoft acquiring Yahoo’s search assets or taking over all of 

Yahoo, this agreement will not remove a competitor from the playing field. Yahoo will remain in the business, in the search advertising business and its other businesses and continue to be a vigorous competitor in all of them. 

Some would have you agree that this agreement will result in 

Google controlling nearly all search advertising. The agreement 

does no such thing. Yahoo will continue to operate its own search 

platforms. It will sell ads to its long-standing deep base of advertisers and continue to operate its own ad auction. The agreement 

merely gives them the option to show some Google ads in cases 

where Google ads are likely to generate more overall value, that is, 

increase the pie for everyone. 

It is important to note that this agreement is limited to the U.S. 

and Canada and excludes emerging fields such as mobile. Simply 

put, Yahoo will have every incentive; and, as you have heard from 

Mr. Callahan, they have every intention of remaining in the business and indeed expanding their business in search and on the rest 

of the Internet. 

Second, the agreement does not increase Google’s share of search 

traffic, because Yahoo will continue to run its own algorithmic 

search engine. 

Third, the agreement does not set an illegal price floor. Microsoft 

would have you believe that the additional revenue that Yahoo and 

Google might generate from this agreement will be solely the result 

of higher prices. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it 

really reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how search 

monetization works. 

This is a very important point. The fact is, we expect a primary 

driver of additional revenue will be more relevant ads being delivered to more users who will then click on those ads in greater numbers. In other words, we are not looking to sell ads at higher prices; 

we are looking to sell more ads. With better targeted advertising 

what you wind up is with more leads for advertisers, more conversions for them and greater value. 

Again, the pie is bigger than it was before. This is good for everyone. Users see more relevant ads, advertisers connect with more interested users, and Yahoo and its partners sell more advertising 

space. 

Fourth, the agreement also upholds Google’s deeply held commitment to protecting user privacy. As Google supplies ads to Yahoo 

and its partners, personally identifiable information of Internet 

users will not be shared between the companies. 

Let me conclude today with some frank talk here. The most energetic critic of this agreement is Microsoft, who, of course, is a major 

competitor of ours and not exactly a mom-and-pop shop. This is the 

same Microsoft whose CEO said he was going to ‘‘kill Google’’, 

along with some other salty language that I can’t repeat here. It 

is the same Microsoft that has a 90 percent share of operating systems, a 95 percent share of productivity software and 80 percent 

37 

share of the browser market. You get the picture. A desktop monopoly that Microsoft, frankly, could use to harm the next phase 

of the Internet, a very important phase of the Internet that we call 

cloud computing. 

Most importantly, this is the same Microsoft that’s actively trying to buy or at least destabilize, from what we can tell, Yahoo and 

eliminate them as a competitor. So if you think all of that gives 

them a bit of incentive to oppose the agreement, you are right. 

In conclusion, let me just say that openness, interoperability and 

competition is central to our culture at Google. It is central to vibrancy of the Internet and the growth of free markets. Unlike on 

the desktop, competition on the Internet has always been and will 

continue to be a click away. 

Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Drummond follows:] 

38 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID C. DRUMMOND


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Mr. CONYERS. Professor of Law, Frank Pasquale, Seaton Hall 

Law School. His research on search engines has been widely reported, featured in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, 

Los Angeles Times and other publications and media. 

TESTIMONY OF FRANK PASQUALE, PROFESSOR, 

SETON HALL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 

Mr. PASQUALE. Chairman Conyers, Ranking Member Chabot, 

thank you very much for giving me this opportunity today. 

This is a very complex area, but what I would like to do today 

is to boil down the considerations of this issue into two large problems and three potential solutions to them. 

The first problem that I think has already been highlighted by 

Attorney Brad Smith here today is Google’s increasing domination 

of the search advertising market and view of the search market in 

general. 

Now I have acknowledged in my testimony that this may well be 

a natural monopoly. There may well be forces in this industry that 

lead to there to be one dominant standard overall, and we have to 

be cognizant of that. But we also have to be cognizant that there 

are some anti-competitive basis, some restraints on trade that are 

also driving this development. 

For example, Professor Ben Edelman of Harvard Business School 

has done some terrific research looking at the data portability and 

the lack of data portability for AdSense customers. Essentially, to 

make a long story short here, Google makes it very difficult for 

AdSense customers to effectively port data that they have cooperatively created through the AdSense program to potential competitors. 

Now, fortunately, this particular problem of data portability I 

think is relatively straightforward to solve. As Professor Edelman 

has said, we could condition or the relevant regulators could condition the deal on that type of data portability. I think it is only fair. 

Cooperative data creation should lead to sharing. 

The larger issue here that I really hope the Committee will focus 

on and the regulators will focus on is to think about the lack of 

transparency in terms of search engine practices here overall. And 

here I think we need to step back a little bit and think about what 

is a search engine. 

I would propose to the Committee—and I think there is lots of 

work to support this—a search engine is fundamentally a voting 

machine. It is a way of tabulating and processing the billions and 

billions of actions on the Internet in order to organize the Internet. 

The unfortunate thing about these voting machines today is they 

are a bit like the voting machines that we have come to suspect 

in some elections, both Republicans and Democrats. They are extremely opaque. 

What I would like to ask the Committee today to consider, for 

example, if an advertiser sues Google over some, say, business dispute and then gradually finds that its rank goes down further and 

further and organic search for its paid searches just aren’t being 

accepted, does it have any way of finding out exactly why that is 

happening? Because of the trade secrecy that Chairman Conyers 

47 

has brought up with respect to this agreement today, I believe it 

does not. 

Think further about what happens if a politician, say, is investigating Google and then finds that there might be some, say, form 

of retaliation or potential retaliation, that the search results about 

them focus primarily on, say, some minor scandal, as opposed to 

the dominant interest of their career. That is another problem, actually entertainingly talked about in Cory Doctorow’s story 

Scroogled. That is the stuff of science fiction, but I still think there 

are lots of issues here involving the transparency of search engines 

that should give the Committee pause. 

I think that we have existing, within our legal frameworks, ways 

of dealing with these problems and ways of dealing with issues 

that need to be kept secret that we should think about. I have 

talked about a parallel to the Pfizer court, and I believe that if we 

have something like the Pfizer court, which potentially puts our national security or national secrets, exposed them to a small select 

group of people, we should not be afraid doing a similar sort of factfinding, regularized, administrative fact-finding about data pools 

and about proving that there is no abuse within search engines 

within the Federal Trade Commission. Some leading scholars have 

called for this. 

I also believe that we have to think about—just in response to 

the points that have been made about not setting prices, I do wonder about whether reserve prices are set in the auctions. For example, there has been economic work about reserve prices set in auction for search terms. If I, say, own the trademark to 2bigfeet.com, 

it is not as if—there are probably not many people going to be bidding for that particular trademark because I own the trademark. 

But it is not as if I will be entering into an auction and, say, 

there will only one or three people there, there most likely will be 

a reserved price set. I believe that is a form of price setting, and 

I believe that this type of concentration does give the dominant entity that will result a lot of power over that type of price setting. 

And, therefore, I proposed in some of my work and I have seen 

it done in some other work annotation remedies that would give 

some rights to trademark holders, if they think the search results 

were unfair, to annotate trade results, to search results, to put an 

asterisk next to those results to indicate that they are the ultimate 

owner of that trademark that was a search term. 

In conclusion, I would like to recommend to the Committee or 

just to ask the Committee to think of these companies as fantastic 

innovators, as wonderful guides to the Internet. But also think of 

them in some ways as Tom Sawyer companies. Remember that 

Tom Sawyer got others in the great Mark Twain story to paint the 

fence for him. Ultimately, what search engines do is they use data 

that we all create, actions that we use on the Internet to create a 

map of the Internet. We have all created this map together, and 

we all deserve a voice in how it is processed and how it is presented. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pasquale follows:] 

48 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRANK PASQUALE


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Mr. CONYERS. President and CEO of AsktheBuilder.com, Tim 

Carter, who has a Web site that educates consumers on how to best 

invest their money into their homes. He was named Hotshot of the 

Year by the International Society of Online Entrepreneurs in 2004 

and the Entrepreneur of the Year by ContentBiz in 2005. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF TIM CARTER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

ASKTHEBUILDER.COM 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you and other Members of the Task Force. 

I really appreciate the opportunity to address you about this very 

important topic. 

The future of the Internet advertising is brilliant. In fact, some 

might say it is possibly one of the fastest-growing segments of our 

national economy. The proposed agreement between Google and 

Yahoo, as seen from my eyes as a consumer and Internet publisher, 

is a very good idea. There are many more winners who benefit from 

this business transaction than those who make claims about being 

harmed. 

People like you and me have problems each day. We seek out solutions to those problems, and with the advent of the Internet it 

has never been easier or faster to discover precise and accurate solutions to those problems. 

In my opinion, one of the reasons for Google’s success stems from 

the fact that they are an excellent matchmaker. They created a 

streamlined search engine that displays search results as well as 

contextual advertising that matches the exact search term typed by 

tens of millions of consumers each day, many of whom are your 

constituents. 

Google is not the sole search engine that does this. The advertising that is part of the search results is purchased by small and 

large companies alike. To the best of my knowledge, this method 

of displaying a highly targeted ad is quite possibly the key component to the paradigm shift that is happening right now in the advertising industry. 

Never before could companies be in front of so many consumers 

who needed their product or service at that exact instant in time. 

The old methods of advertising usually had some type of delay built 

in. 

Billions of dollars are being spent on Internet advertising, and 

the market is growing. It is growing because it is a win-win situation. Consumers who quickly solved their problems win, the companies selling the solution to the consumer wins, the Internet company that sold the ad wins, and, finally, a Web site that displays 

a syndicated ad wins. 

Yahoo has valuable real estate on their Web site pages that is 

seen by tens of millions people each day. They can sell or lease that 

virtual real estate to whomever they please or even fill the space 

with things they create. I do the exact same thing at 

AsktheBuilder.com, filling my pages with my columns and my videos, ads sold by others or ads I sell myself. 

Yahoo is a public corporation, and it is paramount that they do 

what is best for their stockholders. If they can lease space on their 

Web site to some other company and derive revenue for doing virtually nothing, why would you or anyone else stop them? Who is 

63 

getting harmed? Surely not the people who are clicking the ads. 

They willingly click them hoping to discover a solution to the problem they have. 

Let’s take this one more step down the antitrust pathway. When 

and where will you stop sliding down the slippery slope? 

I had a discussion with a fellow Internet entrepreneur named 

Dan Gray. He said, Tim, are you next? When you become the most 

visited home improvement Web site on the Internet, will the government come in and tell you that you can’t display Google ads? 

If that were to happen, it would be the most unAmerican thing I 

could imagine. 

Dan was right. If memory serves me right, antitrust actions were 

initiated when some company or a small group of companies enriched themselves at the expense of many others who were harmed 

financially by the actions of the company or companies. That can’t 

be said about the proposed deal between Google and Yahoo. The 

tens of millions of consumers each day who visit the Yahoo Web 

site are going to see ads that solve their problems. Many will click 

those adds. Hundreds of thousands of businesses who sell products 

and services to these consumers will increase their revenues when 

those ads are clicked. Those companies end up paying more taxes 

in our economy growth. 

Who is harmed in this transaction? Perhaps some other company 

or companies that decided to follow a different pathway in the business jungle. 

My father-in-law taught me long ago there is no substitute for 

brains. Furthermore, I discovered that healthy competition is a 

great thing. 

In closing, the proposed deal has the potential to increase the 

revenues of Yahoo by hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The 

ad revenue that Yahoo receives from Google will flow into Yahoo 

with virtually no expenses. If the management of Yahoo is wise, 

they will reinvest this money back into their company to provide 

the healthy competition that we as consumers want and need. 

The deal may also force other companies in the Internet business 

world to work a little harder. My experience as a builder is that 

a little hard work never really hurt anyone. 

Thank you again for taking the time to consider my opinion in 

this very important issue. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carter follows:] 

64 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIM CARTER


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Mr. CONYERS. Mr. David Sable is the Vice Chairman and Chief 

Operating Officer of Wunderman, a direct marketing agency. Does 

he have the clients: Microsoft, Citibank, Kraft, Hewlett Packard, 

IBM, Colgate Palmolive, Bausch and Lomb and the United States 

Postal Service. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID SABLE, VICE CHAIRMAN AND 

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, WUNDERMAN 

Mr. SABLE. Thank you. Not all current clients. 

Chairman Conyers, Ranking Member Chabot, honorable Members of the Task Force and distinguished panel members, my name 

is David Sable. I am Vice Chairman and CEO of Wunderman, the 

world’s largest marketing services network and a leader and innovator in digital marketing. In that capacity, I work with consumer 

and business-to-business companies, content providers and, of 

course, all communications channels globally, including print, television, mail, outdoor and, of course, the Web and other digital carriers, using data to help our clients create valued relationships 

with their own customers and consumers. 

Microsoft, as you heard, is in fact one of my many clients, and 

Google is a channel that we are deeply involved with, and as such 

we are Google’s client in this capacity. 

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to provide a perspective on this deal and what I consider to be not just the future of 

Internet advertising but the future of the Internet as a free and 

open medium. 

Let me begin by stating that I am a charter Google user. I 

search. I use Picasa. I have a gmail account. I also believe that 

Google rose to success on a simple insight—simple yet brilliant. In 

a landscape populated by portals and cluttered Web sites, Google 

gave users a pure and simple way to get where they needed today 

and to find what they needed to find. 

Google created the ‘‘entry bar’’ on a plain white background. 

And how that bar has change our lives. Search has become effortless. Anyone can do it. The Google brand was easy to remember. It only did one thing. Soon, people were using Google like a 

nav bar, and they became the default on-line ramp of more and 

more people around the world. 

But the world changed. Business needs a model. The pure white 

morphed and advertising based on our activities began to appear, 

as did further plans for more targeted messaging and more applications designed to capture even more of our behavior. 

So far, so good. I was and still am willing to pay the price. 

Google fulfills my needs, so Google can have the data as, by the 

way, so can Yahoo and Microsoft for that matter. 

The advertising business model here is simple. Either consumer 

accept the ads in return for free or reduced cost service or content. 

It is a model we all grew up with, a model we all accept. 

From a professional perspective, I have no issue either. While 

many of my advertising and media colleagues worried they were 

getting disintermediated by Google and others, we saw the opportunity to pick up the consumer at the off-ramp as soon as they hit 

the page to which they were directed. Portals and Web sites as linear, click-through experiences were dead. Web users wanted to find 

69 

specific pages, focused offers and desired the ability to transact as 

quickly and as efficiently as possible. 

Google helped to enable this desire, and the industry built a 

practice of helping clients make better use of search. Google was 

and is good for our business, make no mistake. 

So why am I being worried about this proposed deal? 

On the most basic of levels, my anti-monopoly hackles have risen 

as the market share that such a deal would represent will eliminate any notion of free and open enterprise. It is an agreement 

that could create fixed prices, destroy a currently competitive market, and possibly eradicate any sense of auction-style bidding. 

However, I believe it is only part of the issue. I know you that 

have covered this part of the topic in great depth. Allow me to take 

a slightly different tack. 

Search is all about the algorithm, and that is all about control. 

If you control the algorithm, you effectively control the information 

it presents. Think about it. By restricting or pushing potential 

search results—and you just heard this before—at the most benign 

level, Google could have even more influence on pricing, bringing 

up and suppressing topics at will. 

At another level, do we really want anyone controlling the answers to everything and anything we ask? 

Think about it. With few other search options and the built-in 

lethargy and inertia that Web users portray when it comes to 

switching, a monopoly in this arena is ill-advised. I don’t believe 

that any single entity should ever yield that much power, influence 

or control. 

So while my objections begin with the notion of monopoly, it is 

my fear of what any company could do with that position of unbridled power that makes me oppose the proposed merger. I much 

prefer to see Google remain the important and competitive player 

that it is, spurring all of us to an even more competitive environment. 

In summary, Mr. Chairman, one, Google is a critical competitive 

catalyst for this market and should be encouraged to remain so. 

Two, the true consumer benefit is in the search and the accuracy 

of the information returned to the user. 

In fact, I checked this morning with Forester. I was interested 

in the percent of duplication between search engines. That number 

is only about 40 percent, meaning that the majority of users use 

different search engines for different reasons and are happy with 

the information that they find. We must allow this to continue. 

Third, lowering the cost of acquisition through competition is a 

consumer benefit as it relates to passed-on costs. Raising the cost 

of acquisition has direct impact on raised cost to the consumer. The 

promise of the Web has always been more cost-effective acquisition. 

Finally, because the flow and accuracy of information and search 

is so closely related to monitorization, we must provide the consumer with choice that only competition can provide. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sable follows:] 

70 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID SABLE

Chairman Conyers, Ranking Member Chabot and honorable members of the Task 

Force, my name is David Sable and I am Vice Chairman and COO of Wunderman, 

the world’s largest Marketing Services network and a leader and innovator in digital marketing. In that capacity I work with consumer and business-to-business 

companies, content providers and across all communications channels, globally, 

helping to develop compelling programs that allow our clients to create valued relationships with their own customers and consumers. Microsoft is in fact, one of my 

many clients; and Google is a channel that Wunderman is deeply involved with as 

we are Google’s client in this capacity. 

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to provide a perspective on the GoogleYahoo deal and what I consider to be not just the future of Internet Advertising but 

the future of the Internet as a free and open medium. 

Let me begin by stating that I am a Google user. I search. I use Picassa. I have 

a Gmail account. I also believe that Google rose to success on a simple insight— 

simple yet brilliant. In a landscape populated by ‘‘Portals’’ and cluttered websites 

Google gave users a pure and simple way to get to where they needed to go and 

to find what they wanted to find—Google created the ‘‘entry bar’’ on a plain white 

background. 

And how that bar changed our lives! Search became effortless. Anyone could do 

it. And the Google Brand was easy to remember—it only did one thing. Soon people 

were using Google like a Nav Bar and they became the default on-line ramp of more 

and more of us around the world. 

But all too soon, the world began to change. Turns out Google was watching us 

and analyzing our behavior and web journeys’ from Day One. The pure white 

morphed and advertising based on our activities began to appear as did further 

plans for more and ever more targeted messaging and ever more applications designed to capture even more of our behavior. 

So far so good—I was willing to pay the price—Google fulfilled my needs, so 

Google could have the data. And frankly, Google said it was all ‘‘blind’’ and anonymous anyway—and I believed them. 

From a professional perspective I had no issue either. While many of our Advertising and Media colleagues worried that they were getting disintermediated by 

Google, Wunderman saw the opportunity to pick up the consumer/user at the ‘‘offramp’’ as soon as they hit the page to which they were directed. Portals and 

websites as linear click-through experiences were dead. Web users wanted to find 

specific pages focused offers and desired the ability to transact as quickly and as 

efficiently as possible, Google helped to enable this desire and, Wunderman built a 

practice helping clients make better use of search. Google was good for our business. 

So why am I worried about the proposed deal between Google and Yahoo? 

On the most basic of levels my American, anti-monopoly hackles have risen as the 

market share that such a deal would represent will eliminate any notion of free and 

open enterprise. It is an agreement that would create fixed prices, destroy a, currently, competitive market and it would virtually eradicate any sense of auction 

style bidding. 

However, I believe, that is only a part of the issue and I know that you have covered this part of the topic in great depth. Allow me to take a slightly different tack. 

Search is all about the algorithm, and the algorithm is all about control. And, if 

you control the algorithm you effectively control the information it presents. Think 

about it—by restricting or pushing potential search results—at the most benign 

level—Google will have even more influence on pricing—bringing up or suppressing 

topics at will. At the more Machiavellian level, do we really want Google controlling 

the answers to everything and anything we ask? Think about it. With few other 

search options and the built in lethargy and inertia that web users portray when 

it comes to switching a monopoly in this arena, is ill advised. 

I don’t believe that any single entity should ever wield that much power, influence 

or control. 

So while my objections begin with the notion of monopoly—it is my fear of what 

Google or any company could do with that position of un-bridled power that makes 

me oppose the proposed partnership/merger. 

I much prefer to see Google remain the important and competitive player that is— 

spurring all of us to an even more competitive environment. 

Mr. CONYERS. I ask you all only one question, remembering that 

this is not a merger but an agreement, which has more potential? 

71 

I will start with you, Mr. Sable. Which agreement has more potential for anti-competitive effects, the Yahoo-Google agreement or 

the Yahoo-Microsoft agreement? 

Mr. SABLE. Clearly, the Yahoo-Google agreement, as the size of 

the market share of that particular agreement would be 90 percent 

plus. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Callahan. 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I would disagree with, first and foremost, the 

comment from Mr. Sable that this is like a merger or is a merger. 

First and foremost, it is not a merger. We will continue to compete. 

I think while Yahoo’s corporate future has been an open story for 

several months now, starting with an unsolicited bid from the 

Microsoft Corporation to a combined Microsoft-Icon proposal over 

the weekend for our search business and restructuring proposal, 

Yahoo remains focused on this deal for this hearing today, and we 

are very much convinced that this is a good thing. 

It is good for advertisers, as you heard Mr. Carter say. We believe it is very good for users, who we will be able to provide a 

more relevant experience, and it’s obviously good for Yahoo as we 

continue to invest in our competitive differentiation going forward. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Congressman Conyers, the one that scares me the 

most—actually, I would say it terrifies me—would be a combination of Yahoo and Microsoft. Because Microsoft would effectively either swallow or completely kill off Yahoo’s search engine, in my 

opinion. Then we would only be left with two. 

Right now, in my opinion, we need 10 search engines. I can’t 

wait for the next company that comes along and challenges all 

three of the companies that are here today. I mean, I love all three 

of them. I personally spend my advertising dollars with all three 

companies. I would like to spend my ad dollars with 5 or 10 companies. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Certainly, for us, an agreement between Yahoo and Google is 

going to bring together 90 percent of the market for search advertising. It is going to reduce choices for advertisers. It is going to 

increase prices. I think that is quite clear. 

If you want to talk about what Yahoo and Microsoft might do together, probably the most important word is ‘‘might’’, because we 

haven’t figured out a way to do anything together. But if I look at 

the proposal that we made most recently, that is a proposal that 

would bring us together on search and search advertising. It would 

make Yahoo more efficient, more profitable. It would give us greater scale to do that work together. We would continue to compete 

with each other in a variety of other ways. 

Mr. Drummond usually points out that if Yahoo and Microsoft 

did a complete combination, he would have concerns about lack of 

competition in instant messaging, e-mail and display advertising. 

While, under the proposal that we made, Yahoo and Microsoft 

would continue to compete in all of those areas. But we would finally have a real counterbalance to Google in the market for search 

and search advertising. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Drummond. 

72 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Thank you. 

Let me preface—and I will answer the question directly, but let 

me say we keep hearing this 90 percent number being thrown out 

as the so-called market share that Google will control if this deal 

happens. It is just wrong. 

The relevant market here is not search advertising. The relevant 

market—as all three of our companies have told government in 

various proceedings, the relevant market is on-line advertising, at 

a minimum. That includes display advertising, which is seen by all 

three of our companies as a huge area for us to get into, ultimately 

likely bigger than search and an area converging very much with 

search. 

So if you really look at that market, which is really the relevant 

one, our share is probably in the 20’s. We don’t have much in the 

way of a display advertising business. To my right are the two 

leaders in that area. 

So I think it is very clear. This deal doesn’t increase our share 

in that overall market. Yahoo is staying in the market. They are 

going to be a competitor going forward. 

So if you ask me which deal would restrain competition, I will 

tell you that our deal is pro-competitive. There will still be three 

large, aggressive competitors competing across the board in Internet services. If Microsoft is successful at swallowing up Yahoo, you 

won’t have—one will be gone. That is clear. 

Mr. CONYERS. Professor Pasquale. 

Mr. PASQUALE. Thank you, Chairman. 

My view is that perhaps this could be seen as pro-competitive. 

The Google-Yahoo deal could be see as pro-competitive if Yahoo is 

seen as a failing firm, although I don’t really see the real data for 

that. 

I am wondering, in terms of how we get more search engines, I 

think the real incentive for alternative search engines to develop 

is most likely the promise of getting bought out, getting bought by 

one of the three major players. Anything that consolidates those 

down from three to two or more joint ventures between them I 

think the Committee should look on with some sort of suspicion. 

I finally would like to note, although technically there is a nonexclusive provision of this particular deal between Google and 

Yahoo that is proposed, it is really unlikely any other buyer could 

afford to pay as much as Google. I don’t really see how that exactly 

is envisioned that there is going to be this type of cooperation with 

others than Google because I think Google has this enormous stable of existing advertisers that would maximize the amount they 

could pay to Yahoo for that space. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Ranking Member Chabot. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me start with you, Mr. Carter, since you’re from the First 

District of Ohio. Did you go to LaSalle High School? 

Mr. CARTER. Roger Bacon. We kicked your butts in football many 

times. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thanks for mentioning that. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. 

73 

No, let me start with you. Do you work in your business with 

Google and Yahoo and Microsoft, principally Google, or what? 

Mr. CARTER. I work with all three of those companies. I buy ads 

on all of their services through what I call a super affiliate who 

works for me that sells a lot of our products. I display Google ads 

on AsktheBuilder.com through their ad program. I had been approached several years ago by Yahoo when they started a similar 

program called Yahoo Publisher Network. I also have ads on 

AsktheBuilder right now from Conterra, Tabula. So there are many 

other companies out there that also sell Internet advertising. I 

don’t have an exclusive arrangement on AsktheBuilder. I am constantly testing because everybody has a different angle and has a 

different advertising base. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

You mentioned that you thought that you would like to see another company or entity come into existence at some point that 

would compete with all the companies that are here this afternoon. 

Do you think that that is more likely or less likely to happen if this 

deal went through? 

Mr. CARTER. That is a great question, Congressman Chabot. I 

think if I was either Microsoft, Yahoo or Google, I think I could 

sleep at night. 

But let’s go back in time. I have heard the story of how Sergey 

and Larry started that company. It is unbelievable. There are 

young men and women in this country right now, this great Nation 

of ours, that they are going to take down those three companies. 

I am telling you it is going to happen. So if I was them, even with 

all the billions of dollars they have, they will not ever be able to 

stop that. 

So I encourage it, because I think that is going to make America 

a better place to live. So that is why I am excited about it. I just 

think, from a business perspective, that will help keep those three 

companies on their toes, which is exactly where we need them. We 

don’t ever want them to rest on their laurels. 

So I think this proposed deal is fantastic because it is going to 

give Yahoo this incredible amount of revenue that currently they 

are not getting; and if they play their cards right, they will be able 

to reinvest that and might even become the Google killer. We may 

go back in history and go, what did we do that for? It’s the craziest 

thing we could have ever done. 

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Smith, let me go to you on behalf of Microsoft. 

How would you respond to the 90 percent question and more or 

less likely that this entity will come into existence in the future 

that is going to, in Mr. Carter’s words, kill all three of you? 

Mr. SMITH. Let’s start with the basics. Google has 70, Yahoo has 

20. That equals 90. No doubt about that. I don’t think that is possible to dispute. 

Now it just turns on how does this agreement between the two 

of them—how does this agreement work? How does this open, secret agreement work that none of us are really able to see? I think 

that is a problem in and of itself. 

The way it appears to work is that Yahoo can take ads that it 

is selling at a lower price and send them to Google and have 

Google sell those ads when Google can sell them at a higher price. 

74 

For all the talk about quality and the like, if you look at what 

Yahoo has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, 

what they have displayed is we are going to see, at least in that 

case, the exact same ads from the exact same advertisers on the 

exact same place on the exact same Yahoo search page. It is just 

that Google is doing the reselling at a higher price; and, therefore, 

Yahoo is making more money. 

Now, on the one hand, you can say, maybe Yahoo will use some 

of that money and invest in something that will compete with 

Google. But the reality is every time Google’s prices go up, Yahoo 

benefits. 

That is not the way competition is supposed to work. If we want 

to merge, if we want to have a joint venture that gets reviewed, 

there are efficiencies that come out of that. But when you are competing, you are supposed to keep on competing, not collaborate in 

this kind of way, especially around something like pricing. 

Mr. CHABOT. My time has almost expired. Let me ask one quick 

question. 

Mr. Callahan or Mr. Drummond, why was the deal limited to 

U.S. and Canada? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I can comment. The parties had agreed at this 

time for U.S. and Canada. I think, without speaking for Mr. Drummond, if there was a future opportunity to work together, that is 

something that might be considered. But that is where the negotiations ended. 

As to Mr. Smith’s characterization, this 90 percent number—and 

I think Mr. Drummond spoke to this as well—would be the case 

if Yahoo was somehow merging with Google, exiting the search 

business, shutting down our business, none of which is the case. 

Quite to the contrary. We continue to innovate, not just in sponsored search. I can have a prop here from the Wall Street Journal 

this past Thursday: Yahoo wields new tool to battle Google. This 

is about our open search platform that we opened. 

We continue to very aggressively compete and not just in search. 

Mr. Drummond mentioned one small slice of what all our companies do right now. Google has done quite a good job, obviously, in 

Web search. Yahoo leads in displaying. Yahoo leads in mobile. 

These are areas that we continue to believe there is a compelling 

market opportunity for us to continue to invest, and the proceeds 

from this agreement would be part of that effort, sir. 

Mr. CHABOT. I think Mr. Drummond would like to make a quick 

point. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Mr. Smith repeatedly keeps saying the point of 

this agreement is for Yahoo to have Google ads at higher prices. 

It’s just not right. It’s not just true. I think he knows that if someone says they are improving search monitorization, they are not 

talking about higher prices. The prices are being set in a dynamic 

auction where the advertisers are driving it, the advertisers are 

setting the prices. 

If you design an auction that works very well and you work hard 

on it, what happens is you get more revenue per query. In other 

words, it is more productive. You are getting more revenue because 

you are creating more clicks, more between users and advertisers 

than you would have if you didn’t have as good a system. 

75 

There may be cases in that kind of setting where the prices 

might be higher, but, ultimately, what you are looking for is the 

ultimate advertiser return. That is what drives all of this. What we 

are talking about with Yahoo is incremental revenues, because 

Google is going to be able to deliver them more targeted ads. This 

is not about a price increase. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am thinking about the ad market generally, and in the analysis 

we got from the staff in our memo they note that if you take a look 

at on-line advertising as a whole, there are three big players. 

Yahoo has 18 percent. Microsoft has 6 percent. Google has 25 percent. But if you add that up, that is 51 percent for somebody else, 

not the three big guys. 

We have talked a little bit about competition, actually, the point 

of this, but the insurgents that are coming at you three, the 51 percent, I don’t know who they are. I assume Digg is going to monotize 

some of the social networking like Facebook and MySpace. Who are 

the insurgents coming at you and how does that lead to assurance 

of competition? Any of the three of you. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. If I might add, Congresswoman Lofgren, there 

are lots of them. In fact, we are actually probably most afraid of 

the ones we don’t know about. 

A quick history, quick history. I think I met Larry and Sergey 

10 years ago, and we ended up setting up the company in September 10 years ago. We were very small. There were many bigger 

search companies than we were. 

Our ad system that everybody is talking about as being alleged 

to be dominant and will be around forever is 4 years old. It is 4 

years old. We have only had it for 4 years. 

At the time that we created it, Overture, which was subsequently 

acquired by Yahoo, was an incumbent player. We did it better, and 

we were very small. Our first major deal was with AOL back in 

2002. 

Ms. LOFGREN. You were the big guy. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. But, I kid you not, we were afraid that our company would go bankrupt because of that deal—that is just 4 years 

ago—because of the guarantees we had to make, which turns out 

we were able to perform, because we did a good job, and we have 

continued to try to do a good job. 

So as we look out at the landscape, the capital formation in Silicon Valley continues. There are new companies getting started all 

the time. Seems like hardly a day goes by when you don’t read 

about—whether it’s Facebook or some other social networking site 

being the new place, the new gateway to the Internet. 

I have every confidence that there are going to be more and more 

of these startups coming in that have great ideas and can execute 

them. And the great thing about the Internet is you don’t need millions and millions of ideas all the time. You need a good idea. If 

we don’t respond to that, I think we will wind up in the situation 

that Mr. Carter describes. We have got to innovate, too. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Smith, you were looking eager to say something. 

76 

Mr. SMITH. Just two reactions to these comments. 

First, the Federal Trade Commission looked at the specific question last year of how the market should be defined. It looked at it 

in the context of the DoubleClick merger. What they said specifically, and I will quote, was that the evidence in this case shows 

that the advertising space sold by search engines is not a substitute for space sold directly or indirectly by publishers or vice 

versa. 

So they said quite clearly the relevant market in this context is 

the market for search ads, not all on-line ads. 

Ms. LOFGREN. If I may—because I have got some other questions—I am not going to mention the name of this company because they haven’t done their IPO yet, but there are some insurgents in the Valley that are going to take us to new places in contextual ads. It is very interesting. 

Which leads me to a question about the possibility of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal, for lack of a better word. I am going to ask this 

because I have three companies that all—that have a presence in 

Silicon Valley: Microsoft in Mountainview, Google, Yahoo. My constituents work in your companies. So I am asking this in a very 

parochial way for my constituents. 

I will be honest. To see Icahn’s involvement is a little nervewracking. He was called the vulture capitalist when he took over 

some other companies. His reputation—and I don’t personally know 

him—is that he goes in, he does mass layoffs, cuts costs. It is 

chilling. He said himself that he doesn’t know anything about technology. 

So I think there is some heartburn among the engineers and employees. I am not talking the management, just my constituents, 

about what is their fate going to be. Is Microsoft working with Mr. 

Ichan? Can you put a lid on that on behalf of my constituents here? 

Mr. SMITH. Let me say two things. First, Mr. Ichan got involved 

in these issues with Yahoo in early May. Not any connection with 

Microsoft. He did it entirely on his own. He is now one of the largest shareholders of Yahoo. 

I can certainly allay what I believe is your principal concern. We 

get the fact that technology companies are fundamentally all about 

the people who work there. It is all about the engineers. That is 

why, when we made our initial offer to Yahoo on January 31, we 

offered a 62 percent premium. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I don’t want to get into that. You have answered 

the question. You are not working with Mr. Ichan. That is, I am 

sure, going to be good news to my constituents, and we are anxious 

about this. 

Let me just ask one more question, because I am running out of 

time. 

There are many ways to grab the attention of people. For example, I have a Yahoo e-mail address, a private e-mail, because I don’t 

like the gmail address function. I have complained about it often, 

Mr. Drummond, but there has been no improvement. 

If you take a look at the free e-mail market—and it is a market 

because it drives traffic—Microsoft, at least the last time I looked, 

which was last October, had 38 percent, Yahoo had 38 percent. 

Combined, that is 76 percent. 

77 

So if you take a look at that, with what we know is coming on 

contextual ads, what concern does that give us in terms of the 

same thing you say you are concerned about with the contract between Yahoo and Google? 

Mr. SMITH. I think, first and foremost, if one considers the proposal we made to Yahoo last week, it would have had no impact 

on e-mail whatsoever. They would have continued to compete with 

Microsoft in e-mail. We would have simply come together in one 

area, one area only, and that is search or search and search advertising. 

Ms. LOFGREN. My time is up, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the recognition. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Ric Keller of Florida. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me start with our professor. Is it Pasquale? 

Mr. PASQUALE. Yes. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you. 

Professor Pasquale, part of your testimony is concerned with the 

so-called black box of the search algorithms. Why do you think 

Google, Yahoo or Microsoft or any company, for that matter, should 

be forced to disclose their trade secrets? 

Mr. PASQUALE. Thank you, Representative. 

I don’t believe that they should be forced to disclose them, generally. I mean, that would fly in the face of the fifth amendment 

on trade secret protection. But I do think there are some occasions 

for qualified transparency there so someone else can look under the 

hood, say, in the course of litigation or something like that. 

I think you can think of a situation—and there has been a little 

bit of litigation out there—where someone feels they have been 

treated unfairly by a search engine. As they become more and more 

dominant modes of the gatekeepers for on-line life, I think it is important that there be some entity that has a chance to look under 

the hood, be it in camera or like the FISA court or things like that. 

Mr. KELLER. Who would be in the best position to look under the 

hood of the Google search algorithm, as you suggest? 

Mr. PASQUALE. I believe it has been proposed on I believe Michael Zimmer’s blog or some other search theorist’s that within the 

Federal Trade Commission there be a committee of engineers, attorneys, and policy experts who would be able to look at this. I 

think these might help the companies in some ways. Because, right 

now, you have hundreds of lawsuits over things like trademark, 

other sorts of things that come up. 

You can think about either have this distributed among courts 

around the country or have it done in a centralized administrative 

body where the chance of them being inadvertently disclosed is 

much less likely. 

Mr. KELLER. Not talking about a Federal magistrate? You are 

talking about a private entity? 

Mr. PASQUALE. I think there are some opportunities for cooperation there. 

One thing I would like to commend Google for doing is they have 

a fantastic program for identifying sites that have malware or viruses or spyware that they collaborate with the Harvard Berkman 

78 

Center on. I think that type of collaboration would serve them well 

in situations like this. 

Mr. KELLER. Much of your testimony today is how this deal will 

impact on-line advertising. Obviously, as the Antitrust Task Force, 

our key issue is how things are going to affect or impact consumers. Do you have an opinion as you sit here today about how 

this deal will impact consumers? 

Mr. PASQUALE. I think that my ultimate conclusions here are— 

and my fundamental point would be we should be wary about simple, subtle stories about Internet innovation in this space. I think 

that, yes, there was a situation where Google usurped the position 

of other dominant players. If you look at the way in which it has, 

say, licensing deals for content with other people, if you look at the 

cost of indexing the entire Internet, it is not as if someone could 

just invent this in the garage and challenge Google. 

I think they are rapidly approaching the type of tipping point toward dominance that we saw in the Western Union in 1857, that 

we saw in the Bells in the early 20th century. I think, as we see, 

that we are going to have to think outside the box of antitrust to 

much more extensive interventions. 

Mr. KELLER. Mr. Drummond, if I could go back to you. What impact, if any, do you think this deal will have on consumers, both 

pro and con, if any? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. If you don’t mind a quick response to the point 

about transparency. I was a little puzzled by the notion if someone 

wants to sue Google because of they are wronged about our algorithm or anything else, they wouldn’t be able to get all the information they need. In fact, we have been sued many, many times by 

various people on various claims. We have won these suits, by and 

large. But in all those cases we have had the discovery process. If 

it is a trade secret, you have a protective order and limit the number of people. 

Mr. KELLER. For all their flaws, they haven’t had a hard time 

finding deep pockets. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. We have been there. I want to make that quick 

point that, as I said in my testimony, this deal will be good for consumers. 

Mr. KELLER. Explain it to me as if I am in elementary school, 

as opposed to a general counsel like you. What are the basics of 

why this deal is good for consumers? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. It is good for consumers because ads are a form 

of information. We didn’t see ads as something fundamentally different from results. We figure that if you do a good job, you can 

make them meaningful, you can make them about the information 

that the user is seeking. They should be as valuable as the search 

results. 

A lot of folks who search—and you search for a digital camera. 

You might not want to know how a digital camera works. Maybe 

you want to buy one. So that is really important information. 

So with this deal what this is going to allow is Yahoo to choose 

to use Google ads in those cases, is the Google ads generate more 

value, that is to say, they are more targeted, they create more information. So that is more information available to consumers after 

the fact than there was before. That is a good thing. 

79 

We also think, as I said before, this is going to create more value 

for advertisers and a bigger pie and lead to more sales and more 

conversions for them. Ultimately, that is good for the markets and 

for consumers as well. 

Mr. KELLER. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Lamar Smith, Ranking Member of the Committee. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would actually like to follow up on both some recent questions 

and some recent answers as well. 

Mr. Smith, you rightly pointed out that when Google merged 

with DoubleClick, the FTC said that the search advertising did in 

fact consist of a separate market. And so I tend to agree with you 

that if this arrangement is consummated that we are talking about 

90 percent of the market. At least I will take the FTC’s word for 

it, and that seems logical to me right now. 

That being the question, my follow-up question to some of your 

answers is I still don’t necessarily appreciate where the competition 

is that is going to keep the price of ads down for the advertisers, 

for the consumers. You have been asked about that a couple of 

times. 

Mr. Drummond, you pointed to, theoretically, the new companies 

coming, being founded, started, and providing future competition. 

But I think I am more concerned about the present. Where is the 

competition now that is going to keep prices low? 

While I want to give you a chance to respond, Mr. Callahan has 

not yet responded to that question. I would like to ask him to respond first, and that is, where is the competition in a situation 

where Google, at the option of Yahoo, controls 90 percent of the 

market? Where is the competition that is going to be good for the 

advertisers? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. Where we see the benefit for advertisers is, currently, if a user was to enter a certain search term into the Yahoo 

engine, there may be a case where we don’t return a result because 

there is no result. There has been no advertiser that has bid 

against that search query. In that example, we would then turn to 

the Google system and an advertiser who had bid. There would be 

a click. The advertiser may pay but also generate a customer lead. 

Similar to that, what we would be looking to do at Yahoo is, in 

order to augment the overall relevance of our page—and this goes 

back to the question just asked about consumers’ impact—is to the 

extent, as Mr. Carter mentioned, people that are either looking for 

a commercial question or looking for information in general, Yahoo 

would be able to use the Google system to serve a higher quality 

ad and perhaps generate a click-through. Whether or not—how the 

pricing gets affected depends on the auction on the Google side. 

But that is how we would see it on the Yahoo side. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. I can understand why Google benefits from 

this deal. I am not sure where I see that Yahoo benefits so much. 

As I understand it, there is a part of the agreement that allows 

Google to terminate the agreement if they are not making I think 

it was $83 million in 4 months. That comes out to about a quarter 

of a billion dollars a year. How much does Yahoo expect to make? 

80 

If they are increasing their revenues, why isn’t that going to decrease yours or allow them to dominate the market? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. It is correct. The way you described the termination is right. That is set at a level that we believe would mean— 

and Mr. Drummond will be able to comment better—that would 

mean we would be using their system at a very, very low level. 

That is a small amount of ads. 

What we expect is about $250 million to $400 million in operating cash flow over the first year, assuming implementation 

which, as you know, is still under regulatory review. What we see 

as the benefit for consumers going forward is that, to the extent we 

are able to take money—and we plan to do this—from this arrangement with Google, invest it in some of the innovations like what 

I mentioned from last Thursday, invest it in our mobile platform. 

We are very much speaking today about PC-based search, but we 

see mobile distribution in other areas as a big developer for the future. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Let me ask Mr. Smith to respond to that, 

if I may. 

Mr. SMITH. I think the fundamental problem is pretty well captured by your questions. If there is an advertiser today who wants 

to advertise on Yahoo, it can do so. In the future, it may lose that 

ability because Yahoo will have decided to serve those ads from 

Google instead. 

It is certainly I think patently clear that, in general, the prices 

on Google are higher. I am not complaining. That reflects a number 

of things. But prices for advertisers are higher. In many cases, it 

is going to be companies that are buying an advertisement on 

Yahoo today, they are going to have to pay more to get back to 

where they started just to get back to the same advertisement on 

the same page. That is what I think Yahoo’s filing with the SEC 

makes clear. 

I also think there are a heck of a lot of things about this agreement we don’t know and no one is telling us about. If you look at 

the form 8K that Yahoo filed with the SEC, one of the things it 

noted was that, while Google is going to pay Yahoo a percentage 

of the revenue for selling these ads, that percentage adjusts based 

on specified monthly gross revenue thresholds. That is not explained. 

A lot of times what that means is that the more money that is 

sent, the higher percentage Yahoo may get. There are a lot of incentives here, or there may be a lot of incentives here for Yahoo 

to send even more business to Google. There doesn’t appear to be 

any ceiling. There doesn’t appear to be any limit. Yet it appears to 

be the case every time Google raises its prices Yahoo makes more 

money as well. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Mr. Drummond, do you want to respond 

quickly? Then I will ask Mr. Carter his opinion about the competition. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Sure. Once again, the reason Google has been 

successful and generates more revenues per search generally than 

our competitors is because we have a better ad-targeting technology. The ads are more relevant. More people click on them. 

More ads get served. As a result, there is more revenue generated. 

81 

This is not about price increases. I think it is an awfully broad 

statement to say that prices generally are higher on Google. They 

may or may not be. I think you would have to look at the millions 

of auctions to do such a study. 

I mean, you asked the question where is the competition. The 

competition inherently is in the auction. That is the beauty of this 

system, that the advertisers are the ones setting the prices every 

day on every query. You have our system after this deal. You will 

still have the Yahoo system, the Microsoft system. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. I am not sure I know where an advertiser 

goes, other than, say, Google if Google has 90 percent of the market. Why would anybody go anywhere else? And that allows you to 

increase the prices. 

Mr. Carter or Professor Pasquale, very briefly. 

Mr. CARTER. I understand about the timing. I can tell you that 

the competition out there—you may or may not believe what I am 

going to tell you. As crazy as this sounds—— 

Mr. SMITH. You need to tell me in 15 seconds. 

Mr. CARTER. To a large degree, everyone out here in the auction 

and those of us that create Web sites, we are the ones controlling 

where people are going. It is not the people sitting at this table. 

Now if somebody wants to ask a question, I will tell you how—— 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Let me get Professor Pasquale’s response. 

Mr. PASQUALE. Thank you. 

I would just say very quickly about why is there greater revenue. 

There are two possibilities. 

One, as David Drummond said, there may be better ad-targeting 

technology. However, it may be may be they have more people to 

match. Because we can’t know all about the deals of the ad-targeting technology because of the secrecy, the opacity. We don’t 

know what percentage that is. I think it is the latter case. If it is 

simply they have more people to match, then that is a self-reinforcing dynamic that is only going to lead to increase their monopolistic position. 

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Goodlatte of Virginia. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you for holding this hearing. It is very 

interesting. 

Mr. Drummond, much has been made in the media of Microsoft’s 

bid to acquire Yahoo and Google’s efforts to keep Yahoo an independent company through that deal. What does Google gain from 

keeping another competitor in the market? What are you getting 

out of the deal? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. First of all, revenue. We have a program of syndicating our ads to others on the Web that we have had from the 

beginning of our ad program that is profitable for us. So we like 

to do it. It is open to anyone. You can sign up for it on line if you 

are a Web site. We felt that, in addition to providing us revenue, 

it also helps to create more good content on the Web that we can 

search. 

So we have always felt that that was a good model to have, and 

we think we sent something like $4.5 billion to Web sites last year 

in our program. We think that is a very good thing; and it is good 

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for search, which is our core business. It is a competitor. There are 

other competitors of ours that use various of our services. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me ask you about that. So if you have 

Google doing business on your site, participating in your auctions, 

if you will, and that means that the two companies that have 90 

percent of the market, if Microsoft said they wanted to participate 

with you as well, would Microsoft be welcome to have the same 

kind of deal? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. I agree. We are open to a conversation. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. That does not raise any antitrust concerns? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Again, I think the issue would be we are creating incremental value in the market. The deal we have with 

Yahoo is not ceding their business to us. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. You are becoming the premier auction house. 

Yahoo may be running a satellite auction, which will run if somebody goes there and they can’t place an advertiser. But they are 

going to turn it over to you if they can’t, and you are going to do 

that. You also have Microsoft. Don’t you become the reason why 

anybody wouldn’t advertise with anything else if all of the three 

major search companies on the Internet turn to you as the auction 

house of last resort? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. I don’t really think that is true. Again, the online advertising market is very big. There are huge opportunities 

of new ad formats that are not search, that may touch on search 

but are very different, use different targeting techniques, and we 

are all interested in going after that. It is a big market. These companies want it, and they are not going to cede it to us. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Callahan, you were asked why the deal was 

limited to the U.S. and Canada, and you confirmed it was indeed 

limited to U.S. And Canada, but you didn’t tell us why. Was there 

any concern that in Europe or someplace else that the anti-trust 

laws might have a different impact on this arrangement than here 

in the U.S.? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. It was a product of the negotiations between the 

parties. If there were obviously conversations about pushing this 

transaction to have coverage outside the United States or Canada, 

obviously, we would be ready to engage with the proper authorities. 

But it was a product of negotiations of the parties. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I understand that. But it doesn’t tell you why 

it was the product of the negotiations of the party. Why did you 

limit it to Canada and the United States? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. As we worked through the deal, that is where we 

saw an opportunity for us to get the most value from this and still 

be able to reinvest into our business going forward. I think on the 

Yahoo side we would be open to a conversation about expanding 

this in the future. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Have any State Attorneys General contacted 

you about reviewing the deal? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. There has been interest expressed from certain 

States and similar to our work with the Department of Justice. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Have you provided them with the unredacted 

agreement? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I am not aware of that, sir. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The answer, is no, you have not. 

83 

Mr. CALLAHAN. As to the States? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Yes. 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I am not aware if we have. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. How will they review the deal if they don’t have 

a copy of the deal? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. As I understand it, they will discuss with the Department of Justice, I believe is how the arrangements are set up. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Smith, let me ask you, how would a deal 

between Microsoft and Yahoo be different for on-line advertisers 

than a deal between Google and Yahoo? If there are only three 

search advertising participants in the marketplace, doesn’t any 

deal restrict competition? 

Mr. SMITH. I think there are two important distinctions. First, an 

agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo would bring together 

about 20 to 30 percent of the market, not 90. Second, it would, in 

fact, create a stronger counterbalance to Google in the marketplace 

for search and search advertising. 

I do think, with all due respect to Mr. Drummond, that the market will benefit if there is a significant competitor to keep Google 

honest, and that is what we were striving to create. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

I turn now to Chris Cannon of Utah. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize to our panel 

members. I am the Ranking Member on a Committee doing a 

markup earlier in this session so I missed some of it. 

I take it from Mr. Goodlatte’s question the issue of an unredacted 

contract has come up. Is it possible for this Committee to have access that agreement? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I think we had worked with Committee staff, as 

I understand it from my team, in advance to provide a copy of the 

agreement or information about the agreement. We would be, of 

course, eager to work with the staff on providing information to the 

Task Force, including access to the agreement. 

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. That is I think remarkably important, 

because the devil—or the angel—is in the details. I can’t help 

thinking, as I sit here looking at Microsoft today and Google today 

and Yahoo, without thinking back to a time when one of my constituents, WordPerfect, had a conflict with Microsoft and a large 

lawsuit—I think a $250 million settlement—with Microsoft over its 

dominance of the market. 

I sat down with some of my high-tech guys and said, What do 

you think about Microsoft? They said, We really like Microsoft because they have the platform that we can develop to. So I have 

never found myself actually really antagonistic to Microsoft. 

Frankly, it is sort of interesting to see the evolution here. In fact, 

I can’t help thinking about a corollary in chemistry where you take 

a small aperture with high pressure and let chemicals fall into a 

low pressure environment, where things change dramatically. That 

is sort of like where we are today. 

I am going to address some questions to you, Mr. Drummond, in 

that regard, because we met 6 or 8 months ago, talked at some 

84 

length about what I wanted Google documents to do. So that is a 

tool that I just love. 

The world, seems to me, is changing so remarkably and we are 

at that point now looking forward at what the possibilities are. Mr. 

Carter has talked a little bit about that. What I thought I would 

ask you, Mr. Drummond, if you were your competitors, and not 

necessarily Microsoft or anybody else but in this world, I want to 

frame the future, how would you do it and get around the dominating position that you are currently creating with Yahoo? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Well, thanks for the question. It is a big one. 

First of all, I don’t think we are creating a dominant position 

with Yahoo in this deal for the reasons that I have stated. I think 

that if you talk to anybody at Google, the technical people at 

Google, about the problems we are trying to solve, whether it is 

search or creating quality ads or doing e-mail or any of the things 

we are trying to do effectively, they will tell you that we actually 

aren’t doing it very well, if you can believe that. In other words, 

there is a huge way—we have huge strides to make to still make 

these products a lot better. 

I think that what we are seeing as we go around and talk to engineers, computer scientists, there are a lot of people working on 

some pretty interesting stuff that will take us to the next level. 

I think what I would probably—and I am not in the business of 

advising people to compete with Google, but were I in that business, I would probably say figure out on one of these really tough 

problems a new way to do it, a new way to use computing power 

and to use computer science to do a better job of it. 

Mr. CANNON. Professor, do you have a point you want to make 

here? 

Mr. PASQUALE. Thank you very much, Representative Cannon. 

I would just say that if we look at the technical economic literature on a lot of this stuff, it can be compared to a dating service. 

You can think about what they are doing is a two-sided market. 

You are trying to bring together advertisers and users. 

The question I would put is, if you had two dating services that 

you could go to and one said I have amazing match-matching technology, but I only have 9 members of the opposite sex, and the 

other side, Well, we have about 70 to 90 members of the opposite 

sex, I think I know which dating service I would choose. 

I think that is another reason to be kind of careful, I think, about 

mapping out this potential future. I think that was an excellent 

question, because I think, ultimately, what makes the products better here, if you look at, say, the innovation theory of Eric von 

Hippel at MIT, it is users, it is tracking user habits. For that reason, the company that has the majority of users using its platforms 

tracks those users’ habits and it can tell which ads work and which 

do not much better than the others. That is the key to the innovation here. 

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Yes. Congressman Cannon, I would like to add a little perspective. I think a lot of people don’t realize how fragile all 

of even the search and this advertising situation really is. What I 

mean by that is it is driven by the people that are using it, meaning, I actually believe that there are ways within the algorithms 

85 

that Microsoft or Google uses to where they can actually look at 

how much time a person spends on a page once they go there, once 

they deliver them. I know that because I can see that in my own 

log files at AsktheBuilder. 

So people out in the world viewing the search results, if Google 

or Yahoo starts throwing up garbage search results, I don’t know 

about you, but I know if all of a sudden they are worthless. I am 

going to say I am not coming to Google anymore or to Microsoft 

anymore. 

Mr. CANNON. I am not sure where my time is, but can I ask you 

to refine that question? Because if you shift gears and look at social 

networks, that there is something that informs us here. I think social networks are really in a primitive stage, but at some point people are going to be advertising to other people instead of doing 

searches with Google. 

Mr. Carter, if you would both like to respond. Seems to me that 

the next evolution really goes not to the credibility of the ads but 

the credibility of the person who is promoting the ad or the item 

or the idea. 

Mr. CARTER. Absolutely. Remember, there are only two reasons 

why people are getting on the Internet each day. There are only 

two: pleasure and problems. So if I go to a Web site and it is not 

solving my problem, I am out of there. So if the ad doesn’t solve 

my problem, I am out of there. That is how fragile I am talking 

about. 

That is why this all works right now, and it works so well, because people like me, who write the ads, if I just change one word 

in the headline, I might increase my sales 400 percent. That is a 

magical thing. We have never had that kind of power before. That 

is the power that is in my hands as an advertiser as well as a consumer. Because on the other end I click ads all the time when I 

am looking for a product I want to buy. 

So please don’t give these guys too much credit. I love them all. 

Don’t misunderstand me. But I am trying to tell you that a lot of 

this is actually happening because of what all of us in this room 

do each day when we use the Internet. 

Mr. CANNON. I would love to hear what Mr. Sable has to say. 

Mr. SABLE. I would add one point. Social 

networking is not new. If you go back, there are studies that go 

back to the ’30’s that talk about why would you buy a particular 

product, why would you go to a particular service, and it is because 

my friend here, Mr. Carter, told me. That is all that we have done, 

is created new efficiencies on the Web. 

I think what Mr. Carter was saying, what I was trying to say 

in my statement, was the notion of search is really the key. The 

advertising is great, but the dirty little secret that we all still have 

to wrestle with is that, unlike in the old days when we say we 

know 50 percent works and we wish we knew what to do with the 

other 50 percent, it is a lot less than that today because we are not 

being able to target as well as we should. So targeting and being 

able to serve the right target is still the game. The closer we are 

able to target, the better we are able to use the information that 

we get, is going to make it work. 

86 

But, having said that, it is the critical search at the core that is 

still really the issue. Because, as I said in my testimony, only 40 

percent of search is duplicated. 

So if you look today—and I would be interested in what my colleagues have to say—but if you look at the page, take a Google 

page where the natural search—in other words, the search that 

just comes up from the search engine is in the middle—the clickthrough rates on what is natural, on what I have just asked and 

people like me have asked and sort of works on the basic algorithm, those still have the highest click-through rates, which suggests that the consumer kind of understands where they are going 

to get the best information. 

So the challenge is still to make that advertising not just relevant but incredibly relevant to the content as well as to the user. 

I think that that is really the issue at hand. We must keep that 

piece as competitive as possible. Otherwise, we have lost the game. 

Mr. CANNON. As I yield back, let me point out that, while I talk 

about this exciting future, I hope the record is clear how we take 

the next steps, especially here legally, are really important. That 

is why I think it is important for this Committee to have a pretty 

good look at that agreement so we understand what we are doing. 

Because the predicate we are setting today is going to be the foundation to where we end up. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Tom Feeney of Florida. 

Mr. FEENEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is a fascinating thing. The Internet is still such an infant, 

although it has grown in a hurry. It is very difficult to adopt appropriate regulations. In this case, we are talking antitrust when you 

are letting us really understand exactly how this incredible growth 

has occurred. We certainly couldn’t have predicted it 10 or 15 years 

ago. 

Mr. Carter, you said something earlier which was essentially 

that the Web businesses and the customers are what created the 

drive to specific sites. You are not worried about whether it is a 

90 percent combination or theoretically a 100 percent combination. 

Do you want to elaborate on that? 

Mr. CARTER. I will tell you why I am not worried about it. Because I am telling you that in real world every day people are 

using these search engines, all three of the ones that are here as 

well as other ones we haven’t even discussed today. The consumers 

that are using those search engines and coming up with the search 

results, just like any other—that is a business transaction. If I decide to invest my time at Google, they better give me back a good 

result. Just like last night when I went to eat I didn’t get good 

service. 

So, anyway, the point is the consumers are driving this engine. 

They are driving the bus. 

Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Carter, theoretically, if one company controlled 

100 percent of the market—8 or 10 years ago we didn’t have this 

sort of incredible customer service on the Internet. So if you didn’t 

have anything to compare it to, we don’t really know how theoretically things can get a lot better. We don’t know how much better 

87 

because we can’t micromanage or micro-vision the future in many 

cases. 

Mr. CARTER. I disagree. Because I sell tens of thousands of dollars of advertising myself, and there are hundreds of thousands of 

Web sites out there that also sell their own ads. So the companies 

that are buying ads—remember, you are kind of looking at this myopically, because you are just discussing search advertising. 

Mr. FEENEY. I am looking at this in a confused way. That is why 

I am asking you questions. 

Mr. CARTER. No disrespect intended. Don’t misunderstand me. 

There are all kind of other ads that people can buy on the Internet. 

This may come as a surprise, and some of the people in the room 

may not believe this. I have ads that I sell myself. I have been 

doing it since 1995, and I get click-through rates of 35 percent. 

That is unheard of in the marketplace. My advertisers are doing 

backflips. They are so happy. 

So the point is there are other options out there for companies 

who want to advertise. They don’t even have to go to these three 

giants that are at this table. 

Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Pasquale, you don’t have a dog in this fight. 

You are not trying to merge or unmerge or have a semi-secret 

agreement. On page 3 of your testimony you worry about manipulation that would result in high barriers to entry of new competitors but also barriers presumably to Web sites. I understand why 

it would be in the interest of Yahoo and Google or Microsoft and 

Yahoo or whoever to erect barriers to competitors. Why would it be 

in their interest to erect barriers to a thousand or a hundred thousand new Mr. Carters participating on the Internet? I don’t understand that. 

Mr. PASQUALE. Sure. And I would like to sort of—I think I can 

analogize that, actually, to some of Google’s own advocacy with respect to the carriers and net neutrality. Let me just start, though, 

with a concrete example. 

There was once a Web site called 2bigfeet.com. This Web site, 

through lots of hard work and effort, became—if you put in, ‘‘I have 

large feet. I need size 15, size 16 shoes’’, whatever, your search 

would be about big men’s shoes. It would be the number one site. 

Suddenly, one day, a few years ago, it dropped off entirely, disappeared. I called Google repeatedly. Like his whole business was 

built around search results leading people to his site. 

Now why would that happen? Why might that be something that 

could happen and would be troubling? I think one particular theory 

here that is a possibility is that if you want to sell people paid ads, 

you may want to churn the organic ads, the stuff that just comes 

up in the middle of the screen so you can get more and more paid 

ads sold. So that’s one concern. 

The other concern—this gets back to Mr. Carter’s point. If they 

provide a bad service, I will just leave them. Well, if you have— 

there are some searches where, clearly, if you’re looking for one 

particular site, if you’re looking for Coca-Cola.com and they give 

you Pepsi, that is clearly the wrong answer. 

But many searches are not like the simple navigational search. 

If I put in ‘‘big men’s shoes’’, I may have no idea what I will come 

up with. There is nothing I can check it against. It is what econoVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:13 Jan 16, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\ATRUST3\071508\43524.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
88 

mists call a credence good. And, therefore, I think given the searcher’s position as a credence good, I think we have to worry about 

that. 

And, finally, it ties into net neutrality. All three of the companies 

to my right have talked about their worries, the carriers, telcos and 

other companies who deliberately impair quality of service in order 

to raise their costs in order to reach their customers. I think, by 

the same token, we have to have some worries about search engines potentially churning their organic results or otherwise manipulating results so that people have to buy paid ads rather than 

relying on organic search to connect them to their customers. 

Mr. FEENEY. You know, it is all very interesting. 

Mr. Smith, I guess a lot of the tension today has been on the notion that 30 percent market share you don’t consider to be an antitrust issue, but 90 percent of the market share you do. How would 

a 30 percent market share—if you and Yahoo teamed up, how 

would that benefit the consumers in a way that 90 percent agreement for sharing some sort of infrastructure for auction bids—how 

would your proposal with Yahoo benefit consumers, compared to 

the disadvantage you suggested the arrangement in front of the 

Justice Department would have? 

And with that, when you’re done, I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. I think the real question is whether there will 

emerge in this market for search advertising any real counterbalance to the market power of Google. Quarter after quarter, basically, Google’s market share has been increasing. And while one 

can say, isn’t it nice all of these people together make up what happens, I really don’t think that is the way it works. It is a bit like 

suggesting that it is we consumers that are setting the price for 

gasoline because we are the ones who go to the gas station. Actually, there is an organization called OPEC that has a lot to do with 

it. 

And there are a lot of people who go and bid up for auction prices 

at Google, but the reality is Google sets minimum prices. It sets 

minimum prices oftentimes by individual advertiser. It has quality 

scores that determine who wins. There is not a lot of transparency 

about that. 

The market wants a sustainable counterbalance to Google. I 

think that if in some way, shape or form Microsoft and Yahoo had 

or could have gotten together in the search area we would create 

something that would be sustainable, and it would be more competitive. And that is why Google has taken this step with Yahoo. 

Let’s keep in mind Google didn’t create this exercise a year ago. 

They didn’t initiate it 2 years ago. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo 

on Thursday evening, January 31st; and the very next day Eric 

Schmidt, the CEO of Google, called up Jerry Yang, the CEO of 

Yahoo, and offered his help. I think that says a lot right there. 

Mr. CONYERS. Darrell Issa, California. 

Mr. ISSA. Being on this Committee is always interesting because 

people know that all they have to do is define the relevant market 

their way and they win. And this is no different. 

So I am going to limit my questions; and, in fairness to Microsoft, 

Yahoo/Google, I am going to start and just go back and forth beVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:13 Jan 16, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\ATRUST3\071508\43524.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
89 

tween Yahoo and Microsoft so that we don’t get the inevitable piling on for just a moment. 

Today—wait a second here. Nope, I take that back. I think I will 

go Google and Microsoft for a moment—and nothing personal, 

Yahoo, but you are not the relevant market leader for a moment. 

Let’s talk about this. What should we today and for all time consider the relevant market that your two companies believe we are 

talking about here today and the markets in which each of you believes you do or do not have market dominance? And I ask that because it seems—and I have been fed material by both sides. It 

seems that you both have shifting sands of whether or not you 

have market power in a particular market. 

And I would say to the Chairman, you might remember that the 

NAB came to us and told us that satellite radio didn’t compete 

against radio coming through the airwaves from a different starting point. So we have heard it all. 

But I would like to ask you on behalf of your companies—Mr. 

Smith, starting with you, what is the relevant market that the possible acquisition of Yahoo by you or the combining of efforts with 

Google we are talking about, who’s in it? What size do they have 

together? 

Mr. SMITH. Microsoft put a proposal on the table in May and has 

kept the proposal on the table ever since and reinvigorated it and 

made it more attractive as recently as last Friday. 

Mr. ISSA. And yours is public. 

Mr. SMITH. We have made public statements about it, and it was 

clear that it concerned two things: algorithmic search, which some 

people sometimes called natural search, and paid search, this paid 

search advertising market. 

Certainly Microsoft is not dominating either of those markets. 

Our market share in both of those segments is in the range of 10 

percent, maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit more. 

I believe that Google clearly is dominant in the market for search 

and paid search advertising. I think I should acknowledge we know 

that we have a dominant position, for example, in the market for 

personal computer operating systems. The Federal Court of Appeals was clear about that earlier in this decade. The European 

Commission found us to be dominant in the market in certain server markets. And we have stepped up to that, and we have acknowledged it, and we haven’t continued to debate and suggest that—— 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Drummond, would you agree with that? Is that a 

pretty good assessment of the relevant markets? Or how would you 

differ in your definition of the relevant market? 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Sure. Actually, I would differ. 

Mr. ISSA. Not a surprise. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. As I said earlier, we’ve been absolutely consistent about this. We have had this review we are talking about 

now. We have the DoubleClick review. Our view is that advertising—a lot of advertising is substitutes for other advertising. You 

see a lot of advertising that is currently off-line coming on to the 

Web. So advertisers are literally making that—— 

Mr. ISSA. So you are yellow pages. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. I think there is competition there. But, at a 

minimum, we believe—and we have been very consistent about 

90 

this—that online advertising in its principal forms, or search based 

and display based, is the relevant market for looking at this transaction. We believe it was the relevant marking for looking at our 

DoubleClick transaction. 

I am somewhat surprised to hear Mr. Smith’s answer to that last 

question. Because, in the DoubleClick deal, they weren’t filing papers with agencies saying that on-line advertising was indeed the 

relevant market. So maybe there are some shifting sands there. 

But we have been very consistent—— 

Mr. ISSA. So the 70 percent of the search market is okay with 

you. You are 70 percent of—— 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Actually, I think that overestimates it a bit. Because when I look at that information—we pay to our Web sites, 

which is substantial. So I think it overstates it by a bit, but it is 

a substantial amount. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. I am going to stay in the same genre, but I am 

going to make a small change, and that is barriers to entry. Do you 

both agree that, at this point in the maturity of the Internet, not 

inconceivable that somebody will start in their basement—or, in 

California, we have garages, not basements—and come out of nowhere? But today there appears to be a high barrier to becoming 

a player in the search business. And I say that because many have 

tried, and even those who had a foothold have disappeared, for the 

most part, other than the big three as far as having more than a 

round in here. 

Can you agree that today it appears as though this has sort of 

a success barrier to entry? Can we both agree on that? 

Okay, Yahoo, how about you? If you weren’t in it, could you get 

in it today and gain a 30, 20 percent market share that you have 

today? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I am not sure how quickly a new company could 

gain a share, but I think the innovation point is an important one, 

and it goes back to several comments that were made. 

I believe I read Microsoft acquired a company that does natural 

language search called Powerset for some hundred million dollars 

some time in the last couple weeks. There are companies that do 

mobile voice activated search, which is a market that no company 

really explores in detail right now and I think there is a lot of innovation yet to come. 

Mr. ISSA. Lastly—and this is only for Microsoft and Google, if 

you don’t mind—tie in. Microsoft, you have been sort of—I am 

sorry, Mr. Smith, but you have been accused of, because you have 

so much market share dominance on the desktop 90-ish percent or 

whatever, that somehow that gives you a tie in. And I am not going 

to agree or disagree, but every copy of Microsoft XP and Vista arrives with a search engine in it. And Mr. Drummond you have 65, 

70 percent of the market. 

So can we comment, each of you, on why you think that there 

is a tie-in value to Microsoft, who has less than 10 percent of the 

market but puts it in 90 percent of the products when they arrive, 

versus Google, who arrives from Microsoft without a search in 

Internet Explorer but in fact gains 65 percent of the market. I 

want to understand that. 

91 

Because I want to know if there is any credence to the allegation 

that we seem to keep hearing that somehow market power starts 

with the desktop when, in fact, you have gotten to be the dominant 

player without ever being in the desktop except when I add it while 

surfing—starting off surfing, to be honest, with Microsoft’s product. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Sure. We have been concerned, and we have expressed this concern a number of times, that what happened on the 

desktop, that is to say, with software companies that were startup and through dint of hard work and innovation led the market, 

then were obliterated by Microsoft, because Microsoft was able 

to—— 

Mr. ISSA. My question was they already had the head start when 

you started. 

Mr. DRUMMOND. That’s right. What we have been concerned 

about is the same thing will happen on the Internet through the 

mechanism you just talked—among other ways, the mechanisms 

you just talked about. I think we have been out there talking about 

that, trying to make sure that doesn’t happen. We have talked to 

Microsoft a lot about the design of their products. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, indulgence a little bit. 

I understand you’ve been talking about it. What I’m saying is 

here, today, tell us how, if there is that tie in, not could be a tie 

in, but tie in, how you went from having zero to having market 

dominance while, in fact, their product arrives with a search engine on day one. They own, if you will, Internet Explorer, and 

you’ve gotten there. That’s what I am trying to understand because—— 

Mr. DRUMMOND. Just to be clear, in the early part of our existence, Microsoft really didn’t have a search engine. In fact, they licensed it from someone else. So it wasn’t a part of a market they 

were focusing on. As I think everyone knows, with much fanfare 

Microsoft turned its attention to the Internet in much the same 

way they turned their attention to Internet software such as browsers. And you know what happened with Netscape. 

So our concern was that that could happen, and we have been 

urging people to be vigilant of that happening again. But we like 

competition on the merits. That’s what largely has been happening, 

and we are very happy with that. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Smith, quickly, for an answer. 

Mr. SMITH. Our business is supervised by the Federal Government, a number of States and a number of foreign governments. 

We have clear practices that we published 2 years ago. 

One of the principles that we apply is that, while there is a default setting on Internet Explorer for a search engine for the Internet, any PC manufacturer can change that. So, for example, Google 

has entered into an agreement with Dell so that if you buy a PC 

from Dell it has Google as the default. Yahoo had an agreement 

with HP until recently. So if you bought a PC from HP, it had 

Yahoo as the default. 

We have stepped up, I would say, to a number of responsibilities; 

and we are seeking to live up with them. We are not still living 

in the world where we say, oh, we are never dominant. I am not 

sure that can be said to the gentleman and the company to my left. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. 

92 

Mr. CONYERS. You are welcome. 

Closing comments, Zoe Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for convening this hearing, and I wish that we could do a second round, 

because there are still more questions. I do think that for Silicon 

Valley, certainly the whole country, but the eyes are watching 

today because all three companies, as I said earlier, are part of the 

Valley. And we want to make sure that we have competition. 

Clearly, Silicon Valley thrives on competition, and it is obvious we 

have competition here today as well. 

I really want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the quality of this 

hearing and really the quality of the testimony. And I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. You and everyone else has 5 days to ask them all 

the questions they want, and they’ll send you all the answers they 

want, and we will put it all in the record. 

So I thank the witnesses. This has been an important hearing. 

It has shed a lot of light on a lot of complex issues, and we ask 

that you follow this Committee, the Antitrust, Anti-Competitive 

Task Force here at Judiciary. It is a valuable Committee, and I am 

very pleased that we had so many Members that could join us all 

today. 

Thank you very much for your attention. 

[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the Task Force was adjourned.] 

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