News items continue to pile up suggesting that the FTC is likely to challenge Google’s acquisition of mobile application and website advertising provider, AdMob. See this recent article from the Wall Street Journal and this from Yahoo!, for example.

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Bob Greene (CNN) argues that celebrity endorsements are meaningless.  Worse than that, according to Greene, celebrity endorsements necessarily amount to a raw deal for consumers…

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The EU has launched its preliminary investigation of Google’s search engine and search advertising businesses.  From the Financial Times…

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So, AMD and Intel settled.  Its a case we’ve covered here in significant detail.  Terms haven’t been announced publicly.  AAI has predictably argued that the settlement shouldn’t preclude further enforcement action from NY and the FTC.   The NY Times suggests the same.  They may be right, although Herb Hovenkamp, among others, has suggested that the settlement “has taken a lot of the wind out of the sails” of the FTC case.

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Josh’s thoughtful response (Bitchslap? Nah.) to my post criticizing the Ninth Circuit’s recent Masimo decision raises a number of important matters. I started to just submit a comment to Josh’s post, but then I figured a reply was post-worthy. (I don’t want the antitrust nerds who read these technical posts — and here’s to you, dweeby friends! — to miss the discussion.)

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I started writing this as a comment to Josh’s last post, but it got so long I figured I’d make a post out of it.  Thanks for the inspiration, Josh.

I really hope Radiohead releases the data on its little experiment!  My prediction: They will receive an average price of $2 and a median price of $0.

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Hanno Kaiser at Antitrust Review discusses the implications of Google’s acquisition of YouTube for the net neutrality debate. Hanno opines that the deal may increase the likelihood of a neutrality result even without legislation. While Google’s public pro-neutrality stance is well known, GMU’s Tom Hazlett (my office neighbor and fellow UCLA Economics alum) has a great column in the Financial Times highlighting the difference between Google’s “public policy” stance on net neutrality and its business model. Here’s Hazlett on Google’s now well-known position on net neutrality legislation…

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Kinderstart.com has filed a suit against Google which includes an antitrust claim based on the theory that Google changed its ranking algorithm in a manner that caused Kinderstart’s ranking to drop and revenues to plunge. HT: Antitrust Review. Eric Goldman has got this covered, including links to the complaint, analysis, Google’s motion to dismiss and related briefs, and the oral argument transcripts. The briefs and transcripts (antitrust arguments by Jonathan Jacobson at Wilson Sonsini) are well worth reading on the antitrust points.

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I didn’t pick the name of this weblog, but I really like it. It encapsulates, I believe, much of what the blogosphere is about.

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