Monopoly is a market structure in which a seller is free with his or her decision, providing services or selling products to achieve the utmost profit. It is left to the seller, either to consider his or her buyers or leave them to struggle for services rendered by him. Even if it is disturbing, there is no close substitute to challenge seller’s authority. Google is the monopoly of online advertising. It can exert tremendous influence through its control of how people use the Internet, and crush productive businesses in the process.
Consider the case of CelebrityNetWorth.com — a platform through which information concerning celebrity wealth can be easily accessed. The information provided by CelebrityNetWorth.com turned out to be in great demand, and enabled the site owner to support himself and keep a dozen of people employed. Then Google introduced a feature called “featured snippets” that places answers to search queries at the top of the search page. Instead of having to click on a link in search results, this feature will simply tell you a summary of the top search results. Without the permission from CelebrityNetWorth.com, Google started scraping the site’s data and using the data in featured snippets, often without even crediting CelebrityNetWorth.com. Result? The site’s traffic went down by 65% causing tremendous loss to the owner.
This is just one example, but it proves the point — a monopoly is never good for businesses and end consumers. How this might be prevented is an interesting question, and opinions vary. Some advocate government regulation or anti-trust actions, but the goal is clear — everyone should have fair access to search traffic. This is where BitClave comes in place. Its mission is to build a democratic decentralized search environment where monopolies are impossible. Imagine searching for a product you want to buy, but, instead of getting irrelevant ads from companies that have simply paid more to Google, you would see ads from companies whose offer matches you perfectly. And when you click on the ad, the company does not pay a giant corporation, like Google. No, instead the money rolls directly into your pocket — just for looking at the ad! You think this is a joke? Go to www.bitclave.com and learn about the future of online search and advertising!
