Feds Fight Over Google Probe

Politico reports:

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission both want a piece of Google.

And like prizefighters gearing up for a bout, both are bulking up on their Google muscles and preening for the crowds. They’re hiring experts and attorneys and brokering blockbuster settlements that will require government involvement in the search giant’s business practices for years to come.

The stage is now set for a showdown between the federal government’s two antitrust arms over which one might launch a broader investigation of Google’s business practices — if such a probe proves warranted.

Rebecca Arbogast, managing director of research firm Stifel Nicolaus, said talk of Washington’s antitrust bar comes down to one question these days: “Who is going to be the cop on the Google beat?”

On Friday, DOJ unveiled a consent decree allowing Google to acquire travel software maker ITA, only if the company licenses technology to rivals and puts some business practices under government scrutiny. Arbogast likened the conditions to “an ongoing investigation.”

Only days earlier, news leaked that FTC was considering a broad investigation of possible anti-competitive conduct by Google. That came on the heels of an FTC settlement brokered earlier this month requiring Google’s privacy practices to be reviewed by a third party for the next 20 years.

Next up could be a wide probe into whether Google is playing fair with competitors. Critics, including Microsoft and a number of smaller Web firms, accuse the company of exploiting its dominance in search and search advertising to favor its own products and harm competitors. Google stands by its business practices, saying they’re designed to serve users and not other websites. The resolution of the DOJ-FTC jockeying may determine whether the government responds with a broad probe into the complaints of competitors regarding Google’s use of its search dominance in entering other businesses.

It’s a potentially sensitive political issue — especially for an administration that is striving to be seen as pro-business.

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