Texas Regulators Launch Anti-Trust Investigation Of Google
Sep 4, 2010 Comments Off Pat Dollard
Google disclosed on Friday that Texas regulators have launched the first broad antitrust review of its search and advertising practices in the US.
The move is the latest of a growing number of fights the company faces to contain legal challenges prompted by its spreading influence on online life.
The search company also lost a copyright case in Germany on Friday brought against its YouTube subsidiary and paid $8.5m to settle a class action lawsuit in the US over alleged privacy violations caused by its Buzz social networking service.
Federal regulators in Washington have looked into the competitive implications of Google acquisitions and other business deals in the past, but the investigation by Greg Abbott, Texas attorney-general, is the first to look more broadly at its core search business.
In a blog post, Google said it had been asked for information about three companies that have levelled complaints against it.
The three – MyTriggers and TradeComet in the US, and Foundem in the UK – have accused Google of penalising their websites unfairly by pushing them down its search rankings.
The companies have also accused Google of forcing them to pay excessive amounts to have their advertising displayed when internet users type in certain terms.
“Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it’s unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking,†Don Harrison, Google deputy general counsel, said in the post.
Mr Harrison added that Google tried to put searchers first, not the websites it indexes, and that it was “confident that [it] operates in the best interests of our usersâ€.
Department of Justice lawyers held informal discussions about similar issues with a number of parties this year, but have not followed through with any formal review, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Regulators in Brussels, however, launched a formal preliminary review early this year and are expected to decide soon whether to extend it to a full-blown investigation.
Meanwhile in Germany, a state court in Hamburg found Google liable for the uploading by YouTube users of a number of videos of the singer Sarah Brightman.
The court ruled that measures to limit copyright infringement, such as asking users whether they have the right to post material, were insufficient.
Google attacked the decision, claiming that it ran counter to the European Union’s e-commerce directive.
Like the US, European law shields internet services from liability for copyright violation provided they act promptly to remove material when they receive complaints.
“This decision results in a substantial legal uncertainty for all providers of video platforms, opinion forums, social communities, blogs and many other internet services in Germany,†said Arnd Haller, legal director of Google Germany.
The company would appeal against the ruling, he said.
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