Google and a new form of market failure

"Google has been accused in both Europe and the United States of using its dominant position in search to unfairly promote its own products and services -- from travel and shopping comparison engines to advertising and mapping.

These accusations have been well documented and extend from successful American internet companies such as Yelp, Expedia and Nextag to European start-ups like eJustice.fr and Foundem."

The above news piece reports an unprecedented phenomenon in the realm of market failures. As far as textbook economics goes, there only three forms of price discrimination that firms with monopoly power, engage in, to exercise there monopoly power, but what Google has allegedly engaged in, is a new method* to use its monopoly status to distort markets. Google has used its position as the monopolist in one market, to thwart competition in other markets.

This form of market failure has been made possible by the proliferation of the advanced communication technology and the economy's reliance on the internet. All the e-commerce websites rely heavily on Google for their survival, owing to Google's position as the biggest internet search engine, which is there primary mode of marketing. I don't have any solutions to correct this market failure,but more research is warranted in this area.

For the complete story click on this link.

* I have not come across any specific name for this form of market failure, if any of you do find more literature on this topic please place it in in the comments box.