Legal Pad

Europe Picking On Google. Or Is Google Doing the Bullying?

[Zusha Elinson]

Google is having a bad week in Europe.

David Drummond, the search engine’s chief legal officer, was convicted along with two other execs in Italy today. The charges? Violating the privacy of a disabled boy because a video of him was posted on Google Video, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According the story, Drummond was sentenced to six months in jail, but any sentence under three years is automatically suspended. Does it mean Drummond won’t get to take vacations to Venice anymore?

It hardly needs to be said that the conviction wouldn’t fly in most of the world where web sites aren’t normally held responsible for what gets posted on them.

But there’s more.

Will Lawyer's Sick Days Spur Another Rambus Settlement?

Rambus’ antitrust case against Hynix, Micron and Samsung (settled for $900 million Tuesday) was delayed again because of a sick lawyer.

Last fall, a Sheppard Mullin lawyer representing Samsung fell ill, pushing back the trial date. This time it’s Micron’s lawyer, Bill Price of Quinn Emanuel, who’s not well. Micron asked Judge Richard Kramer to push the trial date back for 60 days and Judge Kramer agreed. The trial will now start on March 22 or sometime after.

Quinn lawyers wouldn’t say what’s wrong with Price, and they filed their briefs under seal and gave their reasons in camera.

We wish Price a speedy recovery, but in the meantime perhaps Micron and Rambus will work out a settlement during the delay. After all, that’s what happened last time with Samsung and Rambus.

— Zusha Elinson

Orrick Tackles China's Debut Antitrust Trial

The Chinese are taking a few cues from the antitrust playbooks of American technology companies, with a little help from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Orrick is advising Baidu, China’s largest search engine, in its defense against a customer’s claim it was blacklisted on the site’s key word advertising service.

We checked in with Ted Henneberry at Orrick to find out why an American firm is helping on the first big antitrust case in China between two Chinese companies.

“It’s pretty much a Wild, Wild West. Its virgin territory,” Henneberry said. “We got involved because there’s virtually no antitrust laws in China.”

Really? None? … After the jump.

Apple Board Shakeup Surprises Someone, but Not Lawyers

So when is Parker Brothers going to rename Park Place Google Place, and Boardwalk Applewalk, right?

In your latest Silicon Valley monopoly update, Google CEO Eric Schmidt steps off the Apple board under heat from antitrust regulators. The FTC had been probing whether Schmidt’s role on the board violated the rarely-enforced section 8 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits competitors from sitting on each other’s boards. That’s to prevent them from fixing prices or dividing up the market.

At first Schmidt was defiant, saying Google and Apple’s products didn’t overlap enough for the two to be competitors. But with the introduction of Chrome OS, Google’s new operating system, the two now compete on phones (iPhone and Google Android) on browsers (Chrome and Safari) and operating systems.

Legal Pad called up Sam Miller, the veteran antitrust lawyer at Sidley Austin, to get his take. The only thing that surprised Miller about the resignation was that it didn’t come sooner.

We are shocked, shocked to find the appearance of conflict … after the jump.

Antitrust Problems For Microhoo? Either Way, Google Says 'Bring it On'

Yahoo and Microsoft finally hooked up, like two aging singles after years of on-again off-again flirting. They announced a 10-year search and online ad deal this morning.

The question for armchair lawyers is: Will the government's more trigger-happy antitrust regulators do anything to stop it?

Legal Pad called up Bob Lande, the co-founder of the American Antitrust Institute. Lande said that normally when the second and third leading players in an industry combine like this, regulators jump on the deal. But because both Yahoo and Microsoft are so far behind the top dog, Google, in search advertising, Lande said it shouldn't be a big issue.

"Their basic argument — letting two little guys compete with Google — is a good one," said Lande, who often urges regulators to scrutinize deals. "Normally number two and three cannot merge unless you’re facing a colossus like this one."

Others beg to differ, after the jump.

Google: We Are So Not Antitrusty, Dude.

Dana Wagner, Google’s most antitrustworthy lawyer.

There’s an interesting debate going on between the editor of Wired and Google’s top antitrust lawyer on this question: is free an antitrust problem?

Wired’s Chris Anderson wrote a column saying that all those things Google gives away for free — search, gmail, maps, directory assistance, new cars — should raise antitrust concerns. How’s that? Anderson argues that because of Google’s dominance in the search advertising market, it can subsidize other products and drive competitors out of the market by offering them for free. It’s like the predatory pricing of the big bad Japanese chipmakers in the days of yore, he writes:

The analogy is something like the semiconductor battles of the 1980s, when Japanese companies were accused of "dumping" (selling for under cost) memory chips in the U.S. market to drive out U.S. competitors.

Google’s antitrust gunslinger responds, then we go to a neutral expert.

DOJ Quietly Turns Its Eye Toward Google's Books Thingy

Dana Wagner, Google's top antitrust lawyer.

In case you missed it Thursday as you hurried out of the office to purchase your illegal fireworks, the Department of Justice finally confirmed that it’s probing the Google books settlement.

In a letter to New York Judge Denny Chin, the DOJ wrote that it has reviewed public complaints that a settlement allowing Google to digitize millions of books gives the search engine a monopoly on so-called “orphan works.” Those are the books where the copyright owners can’t be found or died a sad, childless death. Even though they obviously weren’t at the table, they were included in the $125 million settlement in the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by authors and publishers against Google. Critics like San Francisco’s own Internet Archive raised a stink earlier this year, pointing out that Google’s unique immunity from any potential lawsuits from the owners of orphan works is a barrier to entry for any other Web site that might want to digitize orphan works.

Google's antitrust chessmaster versus orphans, after the jump.