The Federal Trade Commission has announced its conclusion towards antitrust investigations into Google’s search practices, saying on by that there are no wrong happenings going on in the world of Google on the way how it ranked the company on its own content. “We closed this investigation finding the evidence does not support a claim that Google’s prominent display of its own content on its general search page was undertaken without legitimate justification,” agency briefed.
FTC in its statement said, “[T]he FTC concluded that the introduction of Universal Search, as well as additional changes made to Google’s search algorithms – even those that may have had the effect of harming individual competitors – could be plausibly justified as innovations that improved Google’s product and the experience of its users. It therefore has chosen to close the investigation.”
While on the other end, Google said, “The conclusion is clear: Google’s services are good for users and good for competition.”
More choice for websites: Websites can already opt out of Google Search, and they can now remove content (for example reviews) from specialized search results pages, such as local, travel and shopping;
More ad campaign control: Advertisers can already export their ad campaigns from Google AdWords. They will now be able to mix and copy ad campaign data within third-party services that use our AdWords API.
Soon after the FTC report comes, Microsoft pointed out on by saying that the investigation is “a missed opportunity” which will see “serious competition law concerns remain.” Spotted by The Verge, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner shared series of point where the tech giant strongly believes that the FTC did not take adequate actions.
“Google inexplicably has not promised to allow all advertisers to port their campaign data to other ad platforms—only those with a primary billing address in the United States. But many firms based outside the United States advertise in the United States. What basis is there for excluding them from the protection embodied in Google’s commitments? Nor is it clear that Google has even promised to eliminate all of the contractual restrictions that had the effect of blocking data portability. And Google’s promise does not include language standard in antitrust remedies that would prevent it from circumventing its promise by other means.”
