The collapse of Microsoft's bid to acquire Yahoo has prompted industry watchers to ponder whether Google's dominance of search advertising poses any dangers for the Internet.

On Wednesday, the validity of such concerns was underscored by search market metrics released by Hitwise. "Google accounted for 67.90% of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending April 26, 2008. Yahoo Search, MSN Search, and Ask.com each received 20.28%, 6.26% and 4.17%, respectively," Hitwise said.

For Google, that represents another market share increase. For Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask, those numbers represent another decline.

Google is alarming in the same way that Wal-Mart is alarming: It forces competitors to change.

Microsoft may not want to give up on the idea of selling word processing software to people for hundreds of dollars every few years, but Google, by making a free online alternative available, demonstrates the absurdity of the shrink-wrapped software business model. Sooner or later, Microsoft will have to come to terms with the fact that its golden goose has a terminal condition.

- Tom Claburn
Editor, Grok On Google