Google and competition

On Thursday, a House subcommittee heard testimony about Google and the issues of competition and dominance in the digital marketplace.

One witness, Scott Cleland – a noted Google critic – said “Google is a vastly more serious antitrust threat than Microsoft ever was.”

But it doesn’t sound like the folks in Congress are convinced. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said at the hearing “Just because competitors complain about a practice does not mean it is anti-competitive.”

For an in-depth look at competition in the Internet age, check out this podcast by the good people at the Berkman Center. It’s a conversation between Jonathan Zittrain, law professor at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Lawrence Lessig, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and law professor at Harvard Law School.

The two talk about the 12-year old battle between Microsoft and the Department of Justice as well as Google, Facebook and other tech giants.