US May Now Investigate Google’s Market Practices in Addition to EU
The USA’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it is considering an investigation into search engine giant Google’s marketing practices in a move that will pile further pressure on the company which is already under investigation by the EU and may possibly be investigated by the UK as well.
A decision on whether to investigate won’t be made until the US Department of Justice decides to officially challenge Google’s takeover of ITA Software. Speculation that an investigation is imminent increased when Thomas Rosch, one of the FTCs leading five commissioners, announced that he would be very interested in a look at the search engine industry.
Colin Ellis, an analyst at BGC Partners in New York comments “It’s very hard to go through a day without using Google. Google is in the regulatory cross-hairs right now.”
Any investigation would be focused on how Google generates its search results, with the results of the investigation being of interest to companies offering SEO in Birmingham and elsewhere.
“Since competition is one click away on the Internet, we work hard to put our users’ interests first,” a spokesman for Google said. “We built Google for consumers, not websites.”
