[biggermike]

> Amazon promoting its own brands isn't much different from a supermarket offering its own brand items. Apple isn't a monopoly in phones because of Android. And Google's search is so inherently tied to selling ads as a business model that separating them is a difficult argument -- plus search competitors are just a click away, as evidenced by how much Google pays Apple to be the default.

But these aren't the complaints being bade, at least not the ones in the lawsuits we know of so far. The Google lawsuit, for example, targets its practice of paying companies to make it the default search engine in order to maintain it's monopoly on search. It isn't seeking Google divest from its ad business.

That being said, there's no reason search can't be separated from the ad business.

[aardvarkr]

> That being said, there's no reason search can't be separated from the ad business.

I’m not aware of a business model that would keep a search company in business if they didn’t offer ads to go with it. On top of that, offering the ability to companies to target their ads to highly relevant consumers is incredibly valuable to our economy.

[biggermike]

They can still sell their inventory e.g. impressions and clicks, but they wouldn't run the DSP/SSP (just like other ad supported publishers).

[dhnajsjdnd]

In other words, it would mandate the existence of a layer of middlemen between the search engine and ad buyers.