FTC Expands Its Google Antitrust Investigations

New submitter smithz writes "Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expanding its antitrust probe of Google Inc. to include scrutiny of its new Google+ social networking service. Google this week introduced changes to its search engine so that results feature photos, news and comments from Google+. The changes sparked a backlash from bloggers, privacy groups and competitors who said the inclusion of Google+ results unfairly promotes the company's products over other information on the Web. Before expanding the probe, FTC was already investigating Google for giving preference to its own services in search results and whether that practice violates antitrust laws. The agency is also examining whether the company is using its control of the Android mobile operating system to discourage smartphone makers from using rivals' applications. Google is facing similar investigations in Europe and South Korea."

Comments

This is anti SOPA punishment.

[unity100]

Really - ALL of the alleged accusations are practiced daily by other technology companies which have major shares - like ms, apple. Especially apple is almost fascist compared to what others can do with their handsets, including anyone using their software. microsoft even as of now pushes ie9, hotmail, msn through windows. they are even wanting to 'kill' ie6 - it does not matter whether you want it or not, for good or bad measure.

This 'investigation' comes right at the time when sopa thing heated up, mainly because of google's participation and open anti-sopa advocacy. a major force - imagine if google went 'dark' and educated users for one day about sopa. there would not be anything left in the name of sopa after that day

so this is a preemptive strike. they are basically launching an investigation, to scare/caution google, so they wont be so vocal about this sopa shit. if they comply, its going to die out. if they dont, the investigation will find that they are doing anti competitive practices and penalize them. everything was fine when google was cooperating with the current administration for realizing their 'technological vision' ...

corporate bastardry and big media money in action. nothing else.