Google Activities Under Scrutiny By US And Europe

Details Why Google’s Activities is Under Scrutiny By US And Europe

Google’s Activities Under Scrutiny by US, Europe Regulators. Google, the tech giant predominantly know for its search engine, also has fingers in a number of other platform, like online advertising, email messaging and video, just to mention a few.

That gives U.S. antitrust enforcers, who have reportedly found a new interest in pursuing competition charges against Google.

Governments around the world are becoming increasingly unnerved by the power amassed by major technology companies with the dominance of Google in search engine, Facebook in social networking and Amazon in e-commerce raising serious concerns.

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In the most dramatic scenario, a case might be made for breaking the companies into smaller pieces.

The U.S. Justice Department is readying an investigation of Google’s business practices in search and other areas, and whether they violate antitrust law, according to news reports.

Neither the company nor the Justice Department will confirm or deny that a probe has been launched. The Federal Trade Commission, which shares competition oversight with Justice, made an antitrust investigation of Google but closed it in 2013 without taking action.

The company made changes voluntarily after the Federal Trade Commission probe, including letting advertisers use information from their Google ad campaigns to create campaigns with rivals.

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But an Federal Trade Commission staff report released years later showed that the agency staff had urged the presidentially-appointed commissioners to bring a lawsuit against Google, which never happened.

It isn’t clear what specific areas of Google’s business the Justice Department might be probing. But here are some possible areas U.S. antitrust cops might poke into.