Unfair Treatment of Advertisers Posts
FTC Chairwoman: Google’s Voluntary Agreement Not Precedent; Search Bias Pro-competitive Though It Harms Competitors
Thursday, April 18th, 2013
Many were disappointed with the Federal Trade Commission’s and Google’s unprecedented voluntary agreement in January on advertising data and the “scraping” or excerpting of content from sites like Yelp. Now, it seems, the chairwoman of the FTC is apparently dismissing the agreement as a one-time deal that other companies should not expect. Additionally, the newly Read more »
Consumer Group Calls for Google to Offer ‘Objective, Non-discriminatory’ Search Results
Monday, March 25th, 2013
A European consumer group has echoed FairSearch’s call for strong remedies to end Google’s search bias and anti-competitive practices under investigation by the European Commission. On March 22, BEUC, a consortium of 39 national consumer organizations from thirty European countries, issued a six-page paper on the remedies that should be adopted to resolve Google’s anti-competitive Read more »
Politico Pro: Rosch Wanted to Sue Google for Deceptive Practices
Thursday, January 10th, 2013
Politico Pro reported today that there is more to the story of the Federal Trade Commission’s disappointing decision to not address Google’s deceptive and anti-competitive practices in a meaningful way. J. Thomas Rosch, the outgoing FTC commissioner who often was the swing vote on the commission, told Politico Pro he sought to sue Google for Read more »
Does Google Harm Consumers? Bloomberg Editors Say ‘Yes’
Thursday, January 3rd, 2013
Today the Federal Trade Commission issued the disappointing decision to pass on compelling Google to end its anti-competitive search manipulation practices that favor the prominent display of its own products. Rather, the FTC and Google agreed for the search giant to end other anti-competitive practices, largely through a voluntary agreement that lacks the kind of Read more »
FTC Must Protect America’s Consumers, Innovators
Monday, December 17th, 2012
A statement from FairSearch.org: “It’s vital that the FTC live up to its mission of ‘protecting America’s consumers’ by taking a strong, legally binding enforcement action to permanently end Google’s biased display of search results and other harmful abuses of monopoly power that threaten to reduce consumer choice and innovation in Internet services. Enforcement authorities should not Read more »
FairSearch: European Commission, US Have the Evidence, Time to Act is Now
Tuesday, November 27th, 2012
In July, news of technical talks between Google and Joaquín Almunia, vice president of the European Commission and the commissioner responsible for competition, suggested the search giant was finally willing to concede it must change its anti-competitive practices to avoid a finding it is violating the law. In September, Almunia suggested that Google needed to offer Read more »
FairSearch Principles for Evaluating Remedies to Google’s Antitrust Violations
Monday, November 19th, 2012
The members of FairSearch have often been asked, what remedies are our members seeking to resolve the harms that result from Google’s anti-competitive search and business practices. Enforcing existing competition laws in the online context is vital to fostering greater innovation, lower-cost online services, and increased economic growth. As is becoming increasingly evident, this need Read more »
Public Opinion and Scalia’s Supreme Court Writings Support FTC Case Against Google
Monday, October 15th, 2012
With news emerging late last week that the Federal Trade Commission is preparing to move forward in voting out an antitrust case that would conclude that Google’s anti-competitive practices are illegal, it is important to note that public opinion and a key Supreme Court opinion on antitrust support such a case. Politico reported today that Read more »
Reuters: FTC Moves Toward Case Against Google, Four Commissioners See Company Illegally Using its Dominance
Friday, October 12th, 2012
PoliticoPro and Reuters reported today that the Federal Trade Commission is moving closer toward bringing an antitrust case against Google for illegally using its search dominance to harm competitors. The Reuters report said: “Four of the FTC commissioners have become convinced after more than a year of investigation that Google illegally used its dominance of Read more »
FTC Hires Economist, Texas AG Case ‘Looms Large’
Thursday, October 4th, 2012
Yet another sign has emerged that the Federal Trade Commission is serious about preparations to bring a case against Google for antitrust and consumer protection law violations if the company continues to refuse to change its anti-competitive practices on its own through permanent and legally binding agreements. The FTC hired Rich Gilbert, a former top Read more »
