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Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo! all fight Google over potential book sales

Posted Aug 25th 2009 12:00PM by Brian WhiteBrian White RSS Feed
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Amazon.com (AMZN)

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Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has grown plenty of enemies in the past five years due to its unprecedented growth and customer uptake. Put simply, Google produces products people want to use, and as such it has grown to a fantastic size (in product use and revenue).

Google's audacity in wanting to scan in books and make them available to anyone in digital form, though, has been a thorn in the company's side.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) doesn't like Google's moves in the digital book arena because it could take used book revenue away from the internet retailing giant. In fact, the e-tailer has joined Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) in an official coalition to oppose the agreement between Google and the Association of American Publishers and Authors Guild that paved the way for Google to displays portions of books online -- and then sell digital copies of the completed works. Sounds a little like what Amazon does already, right?

Google Books, as the project is called, has already scanned in one million public domain books with expired copyrights and has made them available for free online. The settlement with Google was for $45 million and allows scanning of books still under copyright. A larger question here regards Yahoo! and Microsoft -- what business is this of theirs that Google wants to scan in copyrighted books and make them available online (and for purchase)? The reason: it takes a team to oppose Google these days due to its size and influence.

Tags: Amazon, AMZN, GOOG, Google book sales, Google Book Search, inthenews, Microsoft Corp., MSFT, Yahoo, YHOO

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Last updated: November 26, 2009: 03:01 AM

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