The knives are out in Washington, D.C. for Google. Google has long been under the threat of an antitrust investigation in the U.S., but this time it looks like it is about to happen. According to the Wall Street Journal, the FTC is preparing a major antitrust investigation into Google’s “core search advertising business.” No wonder Larry Page and Eric Schmidt don’t want to appear before a Senate hearing also looking into its market power.
According the the WSJ:
The new FTC investigation . . . will examine fundamental issues relating to Google’s core search advertising business, which still accounts for the overwhelming majority of its revenues. Those will include whether Google—which accounts for around two-thirds of internet searches in the U.S. and more abroad—unfairly channels users to its own growing network of services at the expense of rivals’.
The issue appears to be that Google is using its market power in search to push consumers to its own services. Perhaps the most egregious example of this has been with Google Places, which comes up at the top of search results for pretty much every local search, whether or not it is the best result. The FTC, no doubt, will be asking Yelp about this, which is constantly having run-ins with Google Places. Expedia, TripAdvisor, and Microsoft have also complained about lost clicks.
Are there other examples, and do they rise to the level of antitrust? Most video searches go to YouTube, for example. But is that because Google pushes them there or those are the best results?
It’s going to be hard to prove one way or the other. I’d argue that if a full-blown antitrust investigation does get launched, it may be a signal that Google’s market power has peaked. Remember when Microsoft went through its antitrust ordeal? It’s been downhill for them ever since. And now, just as social (and Facebook) is starting to take over from search as the fundamental way information is shared, discovered, and organized on the Web, the government is focusing on the last decade’s war.
I wouldn’t worry too much about Google’s market power. Technology has a way of overthrowing the powers that be more quickly and naturally than the government ever will.
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Erick has been discovering and working with startups his entire professional career as a technology journalist, startup event producer, and founder. Erick is President & Founding Partner at Traction Technology Partners. He is also a co-founder of TouchCast, the leading interactive video platform, and a partner at bMuse, a startup studio in New York City. He is the former Executive Producer of the DEMO conferences and former Editor-in-Chief of TechCrunch (where he helped conceive, lead and select startups for the Disrupt conferences, among other duties). Prior to TechCrunch, which he joined as Co-Editor in 2007, Erick was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine, and a senior writer at Fortune magazine covering technology.
At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily for the blog. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular blog to a thriving media property. After founder Michael Arrington left in 2011, Schonfeld became Editor in Chief.
Prior to TechCrunch, he was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine, where he wrote feature stories and ran their main blog, The Next Net. He also launched the online video series “The Disruptors” with CNN/Money and hosted regular panels and conferences of industry luminaries. Schonfeld started his career at Fortune magazine in 1993, where he was recognized with numerous journalism awards.