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According to Reuters, top brass at the FTC is convinced it should bring an antitrust case against Google. The writing’s been on the wall since last year, but it looks like things could finally be coming to a head.
The Reuters report says that four out of five FTC commissioners are convinced that Google used its market dominance to elbow out rival search engines. The accusation is the same as it’s been for more than a year: Google tweaked its rules and algorithm to favor its products ahead of its rivals’.
Google was subpoenaed last June, and the FTC expanded its case this January. Then in April, it hired a prosecutor for the case. So this isn’t much of a surprise.
it’s not clear what the stakes would be for Google in an antitrust case, but at the very, very least it would expect some pretty heavy fines if it were found to be in violation of antitrust law. [Reuters]
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Maybe I’m just a stupid person, but I never understood the whole thing where companies are punished for being successful.
Like Microsoft being carpeted for bundling IE with Windows, but I don’t recall Apple being hit for doing the same with Safari?
Google aren’t a monopoly. They’re a market leader, but there are loads of competitors out there. No one is forced to use Google over, say, Bing or Yahoo or Ask or whoever.
And that’s why you don’t work for the FTC.
Microsoft blocked uninstallation of IE in some installations, and forced users to make it the default program for certain instances. Which is quite a bit more severe. But still, I agree with you, Window is their product, why should they allow other applications? Apple let users uninstall Safari. The market leader should do everything they can to stay in the lead, barring breaking the law, surely?
Safari, Itunes in fact most things Apple do yet they always seem to avoid being targeted I wounder who gets their pockets lined!
I’d agree with @number13, nobody is forced to use Google yet you are forced to use itunes or Apple only approved apps with iphones yet Google phones you can use many other app stores
Whilst I agree with your sentiments it all boils down to numbers Microsoft had a 90% share of the PC market at the time of the IE anti trust case and Google has an 86% share of the search engine market in both cases its verging on a monopoly.
Thats too much power in the hands of a small group of people which weren’t elected and before anyone says they were elected because people chose to use their search engine or OS, thats like a presidential campaigner saying you ate one of my free hotdogs their fore that means you voted for me, just because someone uses their product it doesn’t mean they want to give that company a monopoly and use that monopoly to decrease the likelihood of the average user seeing a rivals product.
Apple currently has a 17% share of the smartphone market and 70% + of the tablet market obviously their tablet market share is a concern but at the moment its an emerging market unlike PC’s and Search engines which are fully established