From this and other stories, I get the impression Google went up to about $4 billion before dropping out. I don't see how bidding mathematically amusing amounts along the way indicates they weren't serious.<p>I expect that at those points in the auction everyone knew it was going to go much higher than the current bids, so Google and everyone else knew that their bids at that point were just formalities. Why not play around a bit?
This article is silly. The reason Google lost the auction is because they weren't willing to spend more then 4 billion dollars, but others were. The amounts they bid along the way have absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of the auction. Nothing. It has nothing to do with overconfidence or anything like that, it's a simple numbers game. Google apparently didn't think that the patents were worth what they sold for, so they stopped bidding. It's similar to an eBay action -- something that's a good deal at $50 may not be such a good deal at $500.<p>-1 Flamebait.