[inlined]

Taken in the context of Google as a whole, this seems like pretty good evidence that Google does not consider itself to benefit from monopoly power like the DOJ claims. If Google did have a monopolistic advantage, they could refuse to pay the link tax. Clearly they're worried about losing market share to other search engines.

[usual disclaimer: I work at Google but on nothing related to search or policy]

[freedomben]

I'm not sure I agree. I'm not sure I disagree either though. But it seems like it might be a false dichotomy.

For example, with a current gov like Canada, I think they'd be more worried about government action than competitors, and that's plenty of an incentive to get them to pay the money.

[cool_dude85]

>If Google did have a monopolistic advantage, they could refuse to pay the link tax.

Or maybe they think the engineering work to maintain a whole separate search page, and revenue loss from not including links, is less than the amount they stand to pay.

[beej71]

I thought they did it because they figured paying the tax was maximizing revenue. But I hadn't considered the antitrust advantages.