Google is an American multinational internet and software corporation specialized in internet search, cloud computing and advertising technologies. Google was founded by Larry page and Sergey Brin in 1998. Google provides free services for their users such as Google Book Search, Google news, YouTube and Google maps. Google has grown to become one of the most recognized brands in the world as well as global technology leader. This is because it provides the largest platform for all the websites to get searched by the people who need them (Kasi, 2012).
However, not everything at Google is perfect. There are few issues and problems that Google was facing. Google faced the competition from social networks especially Facebook. Google and Facebook compete for the income from online advertising but the services they offer are extremely different. Facebook focuses on online network while Google focus a wide range of other online service needs. However, the issue of Facebook not allowing Google to search the Facebook website remains to be a problem although the companies are not competitors in the sense that they both offer similar product. The advantage of search engine is it allows users to find anything they desire but such a large platform does not allow Google’s searches will be a disadvantage. Therefore, as long as western world remain Facebook as the primary social network and maintain its digital platform private, Google will face the difficulty claiming its part of the advertisement income from the social network industry (Verne, 2013).
Moreover, Google is still in big trouble in China. For instance, China imposes internet censorship law and regulation in the country but Google believes in the principle of free flow of information. As a result, conflict happened between two different believers. Google insists that it will withdraw from the Chinese search market only if the government removed its internet censorship law. However, china government does not compromise on this matter because it believed violence will be filtered under strictly censorship. Also, Google succeed in most regional markets in the world except in China. This is because Baidu is the largest engine in China. The market share for Baidu and Google is 58.4% and 35.6% respectively. Therefore, the reason Google lose Baidu in China market is due to the market environment in China is not alike comparing to United States (Kathleen, 2011).
Another issue that is being concerned by Google is that Google’s practices in its display advertisement business and whether it is misusing its monopoly power in search engine industry also investigated by Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in order to avoid harm competition in online advertising. FTC is also investigates whether Google is using its equipment to compel companies to leave aside competing products and use other Google properties such as marketplace for buying and selling online display advertisement and feature that help increase the company revenue from markets outside the United States. Google’s potential to use its dominance in online advertising to squeeze out competitors also has been investigated by FTC. However, if Google is accused of being a monopoly, it will reduce the company independence. Besides, Google’s profits from illegal advertisement promoting the sale of drugs online and advertisement on videos promoting illegal activities have been investigated. Therefore, Google settled an investigation into revenue generated by illegal advertisement with the U.S. Justice Department around $500 million penalty (Verne, 2013).
In conclusion, there is nothing can last forever due to the rapidly transform global environment and the cause of yesterday’s success may be the cause of tomorrow’s failure (Kim, 1999). Though Google has remained a well-known, respected company in search engine industry but Google sometimes pursues ideas that will bring negatively impact to the company itself and the market. Therefore, it is essential for Google to analyze and implement the most appropriate strategies to overcome their problems and perform more effectively and efficiently in order to create a good global image for the particular organization.