Google Said to Be Possible Target of U.S. FTC Antitrust Probe
April 5th, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is considering a broad antitrust investigation into Google Inc.’s dominance of the Internet-search industry, two people familiar with the matter said.
Before proceeding with any probe, the FTC is awaiting a decision by the Justice Department on whether it will challenge Google’s planned acquisition of ITA Software Inc. as a threat to competition in the travel-information search business, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is still confidential.
An FTC investigation of Google, the world’s most popular search engine, “could be on par” with the scope of the Justice Department’s probe of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) a decade ago, said Keith Hylton, an antitrust law professor at Boston University School of Law. Google “could fight the FTC, but that’s going to cost a lot of money and time.”
