There has been litigation and quarreling in Europe for months now over Google’s search business practices. It all has to do with whether Google gives unfair preferential treatment to its own products in search over its competitors. In other words, if Google has a product that is less popular in a given category than its competitors but it displays itself first, that is viewed by some as anti-competitive.
These gripes haven’t come stateside yet but it looks like they’re about to. Senators Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are calling for a formal investigation of Google search related to anti-trust.
It’s an issue that has taken longer to arrive in the States because, unlike Europe, American business culture has more of a tone of “well, why shouldn’t a business favor its own products?” whereas Europe is more likely to regulate in order to favor competition.
The FTC is already investigating Google for anti-trust business practices but the Senators are asking for even more focus on search in particular.
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