New York, April 06: The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly considering a broad anti-trust investigation into Google Inc.’s dominance of the Internet search industry.
Before proceeding with any probe, the FTC is awaiting a decision by the Justice Department on whether it will challenge Google’s planned acquisition of ITA Software Inc. as a threat to competition in the travel-information search business, Bloomberg quoted two people familiar with the matter as saying on condition of anonymity.
An FTC investigation of Google, the world’s most popular search engine, “could be on par” with the scope of the Justice Department’s probe of Microsoft Corp. a decade ago, said Keith Hylton, an anti-trust law professor at Boston University School of Law.
Google “could fight the FTC, but that’s going to cost a lot of money and time,” Hylton added.
The FTC and Justice Department share responsibility for oversight of anti-trust enforcement, and the outcome of the ITA deal may determine whether the two agencies will vie for control of a broader probe of Google, the Bloomberg report said.
The two agencies sometimes negotiate which one of them should handle major anti-trust investigations, with the decision turning on their respective expertise.
The Justice Department may soon announce its decision on Google’s purchase of ITA, Bloomberg quoted the people familiar with the matter as saying.
——–Agencies