Google recently published a graph comparing itself to other large companies (Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon and IBM) in its “I see no evil” campaign to try to keep the DOJ off its back. It’s described in great detail in this article on SearchEngineLand, which seems to hew to the line “y’know Google doth protest a lot – maybe too much”. I’m inclined to agree.

Google may only have 30% or so of US on-line ad revenue, and less than 3% of the ad market as a whole, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it is a de facto monopoly in the search market and an advertising juggernaut on the web. While most other advertising businesses are suffering horribly in this recession, Google isn’t and Google will probably emerge from it with a bigger piece of the pie than the one it was chewing on when the stock market collapsed like a badly cooked soufflé.

The graph, printed below depicts reality in terms of 3 dynamics, staff (measured in thousands), revenue (measured in $billions) and market cap (measured in $billions). I’ve added Apple in because it offers you a similar profile to Google. Both Google and Apple are valued respectively at 5.85 x revenue and 3.76 x revenue. The only company that comes close to such a multiple is Microsoft (3.38 x revenue) but Microsoft has seen better days and done better things, while both Google and Apple are rising.

Revenues and employee numbers mean very little. I remember feeling “a disturbance in the force” when Microsoft only had revenues of $3bn and investors felt the same thing too, which is why they poured money all over the stock. If Google wants to convince the DOJ that it’s not hovering over a monopoly it need do nothing more than convince its shareholders of that fact – and then watch them run for the doors.