The US govt files an antitrust lawsuit against tech giant Google for destroying competitions to save and extend its monopoly.
The Justice Department, after a 14-month long investigation, is checking on Google’s step whether it makes search result bias towards it or dictates the users to shut out rivals, said the people familiar with this matter.
Google, which is almost the king of the online search market in the US, has long been a target of rivals complaining that it uses its power to snuff out competition across the internet.
A college research project in the late 1990s now manages to pocket in about $100 billion in highly-profitable revenue each year.
European competition regulators have fined on Google billions of euros for breaking antitrust laws. But U.S. enforcers have left the company mostly untouched since the Federal Trade Commission closed a probe in early 2013 with no action.
Senior Justice Department officials met with Google representatives this week to discuss two prongs of the investigation: search bias and search distribution, according to one of the people.
During a recent congressional hearing, Google executive Don Harrison argued that the company doesn’t dominate the markets it operates in.
Google may lead when it comes to general searches, but for product queries and other commercial searches consumers are more likely to start on Amazon.com Inc., he noted.
An investigation on Google's conduct in the advertising-technology market, where Google owns many of the systems that deliver display ads across the web are being held by the Justice Department and states.
Competitors have complained that Google funnels excess search marketing dollars to its display ad network. That extra money can account for large portions of digital publisher revenue, making them less likely to drop Google for a rival ad-tech provider.
