There is a lawsuit against Google by a French web analytics company based in Sophia Antipolis, NSP. Basically, it says that Google is abusing its de facto monopoly in search engine ads to squash small web analytics firms by offering Google Analytics for free. The big problem with this legal approach is that offering free services is the intrinsic part of the dual marketing strategy that any successful web company should employ. (“Give Something Away. + Sell Something Else.“) It would not benefit the citizens (and consumers) if big companies (like Google or MicroSoft) were prevented from offering web services for free. At the contrary, the more free resources, the better the society.
As for the small startups, there are numerous niches on the Web where they can try to innovate and apply the dual marketing strategy. That is what NSP should be doing, instead of wasting time and money in the courtroom.
