Not a monopoly
I have to echo some sentiments here:
You are CHOOSING to buy an ad on Google. You are CHOOSING which terms and conditions you agree to. You are CHOOSING how much to spend. You are CHOOSING not to use the competitors (because, put simply, they don't make you as much money). You are freely CHOOSING to rely on that particular third-party, in a market of other third-parties. That's NOT a "monopoly abusing its position", that's just a greater share of the market and providing a better product.
Google are not doing things like buying up every other ad company in the world, forcing websites to display Google ad's (that's a free choice of the webmaster, nobody is MADE to display Google's ads, but there is an "exclusivity" clause in showing Google ads on your website that stops you gaming many ad suppliers), cutting off other Google services to people that refuse to display Google ads, etc. They are behaving sensibly and responsibly and within the agreements that you have agreed to.
The fact that you can't make money from buying a couple of Google's ads isn't their problem. It really isn't. The fact that you blow $90,000 on Google ads and see no return is not their problem, so long as they did what they said they would do. The fact that you can get to the very top of their listings, legitimately, without having to buy a single ad from them is a show of just what they are doing... trying to provide a search engine. They are funded by ads, yes, but they are not controlled by them - the top spot on the search engine is not bought, it's earned by being relevant. Those little bits on the right and above the actual search results that most people just plain ignore are the bits you can buy, by agreeing to Google's (not unreasonable) terms. I don't think I've ever clicked one in my life, even when it was relevant. Even people who are new to computers filter them out of their brains within about ten minutes of viewing pages and finding which results ARE relevant.
If your business relies on people clicking a Google ad, you're doomed to failure. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon... If your business relies on getting visitors from the web, that's a different story entirely and has nothing to do with Google ads.
On a personal note, I have Google ads displayed on my sites but I would NEVER buy one, even if I was a millionaire. I might try to get to the top of the listings myself through some HTML trickery but not by gaming the system. My brother runs a *very* popular website which we started together and has been running for nearly 10 years now. Just before Christmas we put our first ever adverts on it (Google ads) to bring in some money. We were expecting pence. We got more than enough to fund the hosting of the website (high-bandwidth) and a bit left over. The cheques are regular and sufficient. That's brilliant, because it was never designed or expected to generate any money whatsoever.
Not once has the site ever previously been advertised with any ad campaign. Our visitors come to us mainly because they find us in Google, or MSN, or Yahoo, or Ask.com, or a million and one other search engines and linking sites. Because we are relevant.
We submitted it to search engines years ago, created some relevant content and Google therefore rewarded us with high-ranking listings and high-paying ads displayed on the site. We could actually make the same amount of money from suppliers that approach us about displaying a single ad in the same place for a fixed fee per year. We get about a dozen offers a year. Most of them could never afford to replace our Google Ad income.
But we couldn't ever rely on any business we ran, even from that site, being primarily funded by the fact that people come to us from a Google ad that we have to pay for, that's just crazy. You have to have product, you have to have standing, you have to have profit margins, you have to have a study influx of visitors from ALL types of media, web, phone, email, fax, walking-through-the-door, word-of-mouth. But most of you, you have to be relevant and not rely on a third-party to get visitors for you unless you have read every single clause in your contract with them. If they were a conventional advertisement company, would you agree to those terms. If yes, then you can't complain about Google. If no, then why are you agreeing to Google's terms?
Don't tell me that you NEED Google to run a web business. That's rubbish. You just need pageviews. If you can't get your pageviews through Google's unpaid service, then you're wasting your time to start.