From my old law courses (IANAL but someone decided programmers should have a basic knowledge of law):
* An illegal monopoly should not be absolute. Having >20% of the market has been enough te be considered a monopoliy for antitrust. The main question is if your actions dominate the market.
* But having a monopoly is not enough. You can have 100% of the market and be legal. Abusing the monopoly is the problem. Abuse is typically crushing smaller competitors, or using your monopoly in 1 market to push yourself to another market.
* Is google abusing its potential email monopoly? My non-lawyer guess is no. Being non-responsive and arrogant is not illegal.
* But the google browser and search engine might very well be other stories. Here google seems dominant enough to influence web standards and change other corporations behaviour to raise in their search index.
* I don't think US or EU governement are willing to step in, though.
* An illegal monopoly should not be absolute. Having >20% of the market has been enough te be considered a monopoliy for antitrust. The main question is if your actions dominate the market.
* But having a monopoly is not enough. You can have 100% of the market and be legal. Abusing the monopoly is the problem. Abuse is typically crushing smaller competitors, or using your monopoly in 1 market to push yourself to another market.
* Is google abusing its potential email monopoly? My non-lawyer guess is no. Being non-responsive and arrogant is not illegal.
* But the google browser and search engine might very well be other stories. Here google seems dominant enough to influence web standards and change other corporations behaviour to raise in their search index.
* I don't think US or EU governement are willing to step in, though.