Google, consistently garnering over a billion unique monthly visits, is arguably the world's most influential website. With its enormous influence, many would argue that Google's search results have an effect upon what people do. This becomes a problem amid allegations that Google has allegedly been favoring certain sites over others, skewing the search results of its engine.
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an investigation over whether Google had been participating in anti-trust activities by favoring its own sites and subsidiaries -- such as Youtube -- over those of competitors, according to the Financial Times. For those who don't know, anti-trust activities are ones that prohibit free-market competition by way of a monopoly or conspiracy . Below I will provide verdict arguments from both Google and the FTC.
The Federal Trade Commission
The FTC is pursuing Google's alleged violation of basic anti-trust laws not so much for economic reasons -- although they certainly factor in -- but rather for the "public good." Bob Lande, director of the nonprofit research group American Antitrust Institute, explains his criteria for investigation. According to NPR:
"Have they unfairly excluded competitors in a way that will hurt consumers?" Lande said. "Google has... the incentive to unfairly exclude competitors in a way that could harm consumers. And the FTC wants to see whether this has happened."
Many specialized domains such as traveling site kayak.com have in particular complained that Google not only benefits financially from imposing its own search results but limits the ostensible options to a consumer. Using a hypothetical trip to Tahiti as an example, Kayak's CEO Robert Birge says:
"I think what would happen if you search... [is] you're going to see a number of search results that appear to be unbiased search results from the Google search engine, when in fact they're a part of a new product that Google has launched last year -- that's their own product -- and is based on what advertisers are paying them."
It is thought that many other sites, such as Mapquest (which is displaced by Google Maps) and even Ebay (via Google's Checkout), have also been affected by Google's alleged bias.
Google, to no one's surprise, has denied any wrongdoing. Chairman Eric Schmidt said, "We don't know what the 'complaint' is," before affirming that Google is "a law-abiding company." In regards to the monopoly accusations, Schmidt vehemently stated, "Each time a user searches on Google they are choosing to do so, and they can switch at zero cost." While claiming to not understand the motives of the FTC's investigation, Google has said it will wholeheartedly abide by any of the agency's orders, which really makes one question how much the corporation could have done wrong.
It should be noted that Google by no means completely controls the market: it receives slightly over 65 percent of search engine queries. Google has been losing ground in recent months, in particular to Microsoft's Bing, and its services have always been free to use. Because of the case's circumstances, many have called the FTC's over a century-old methods antiquated, according to Forbes.
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