WILL Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Yahoo help or harm competition on the web?
With only 3.4 per cent of internet searches going through Microsoft, compared with 77 per cent through Google and 12 per cent through Yahoo, that the acquisition is the only way to establish “a compelling number two” and promote healthy competition.
Meanwhile that a deal would allow Microsoft to “exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the internet that it did with the PC” and hand it an “overwhelming share” of the webmail and instant messenger markets.
The bid…
