U.S. Probe of Google Should Include Search, Senators Say
Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine claims that platforms like Google favour their services over those of rivals
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Justice Department should expand its antitrust investigation of Alphabet Inc.’s Google to include the internet giant’s conduct in online search, in addition to digitial advertising, two senators said.
Missouri Republican Josh Hawley and Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Tuesday that the department’s inquiry appears to be too narrowly focused on advertising even though the company is a monopoly in internet search, “where the opportunities for anticompetitive conduct are substantial.”
“It is critical to remember that the company’s primary function is supplying a search engine to users,” they wrote to Attorney General William Barr. “Narrowing the investigation’s focus such that Google’s anti-competitive practices to dominate the online search market is not captured does a grave disservice to consumers.”
The senators’ plea comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday to examine claims that internet platforms like Google favor their own services over those of rivals. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she was introducing legislation that would toughen antitrust enforcement by putting the burden on companies to justify conduct that thwarts rivals.
“All of us hear stories about how these companies are leveraging their scale or financial resources with unparalled access to users’ data and market power,” she said.
Executives of Yelp Inc., which has long complained that Google is thwarting competition in the market for local searches, told the senators on Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee that reports the Justice Department is focused on Google’s conduct in the digital advertising market are a concern.
“Making the focus too narrow would be a grave mistake,” Luther Lowe, Yelp’s senior vice president for public policy, said in written testimony. “You can’t look at Standard Oil without looking at oil. You cannot investigate Google without looking at search.”
Google is contending with multiple investigations of its conduct, with the Justice Department, state attorneys general and the House antitrust committee all conducting inquiries.
The FTC closed a two-year inquiry into Google’s search practices in 2013 without taking action. Google declined to comment about the senators’ request.
At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, Senator Mike Lee of Utah said he is frustrated by overlapping investigations by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust jurisdiction. Both are investigating Facebook Inc.
“Frankly it’s unacceptable that the FTC and the DOJ are duplicating each other’s investigations when both concede that they’re strapped for resources as it is, even when they’re not tripping over each other,” Lee said.
The Justice Department probe of Google, announced last year as part of a broad investigation into potentially anti-competitive conduct by digital platforms, has focused in part the company’s dominance in the digital advertising market, where its technology delivers ads across the web.
The states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have gone beyond digital advertising to look at search and mobile software, Bloomberg News reported in November.
To contact the reporters on this story: David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net;Ben Brody in Washington, D.C. at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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