ARE "ONLINE MARKETS" REAL AND RELEVANT? FROM THE MONSTER-HOTJOBS MERGER TO THE GOOGLE-DOUBLECLICK MERGER

This article examines two Internet merger investigations from 2001 and 2007 to answer the question of whether there is such a thing as a distinct "Internet market," and if so, how an antitrust analysis of such a market should differ from parallel analyses applied to more conventional markets. A quick comparison of two Internet advertising mergers from different stages of the Internet's existence demonstrates two things. First, as the novelty of the Internet wears off, online merger analysis looks increasingly like offline merger analysis. Second, most of the things that make online mergers interesting have little to do with competition law.