FTC To Make Announcement About Google Antitrust Probe At 10 AM PT

[ayzo]

FTC To Make Announcement About Google Antitrust Probe At 10 AM PT 10am PT | TechCrunch

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission just announced that its chairman Jon Leibowitz will make an announcement about the agency’s investigation of Google at 1pm ET/10am PT. Leibowitz will be joined at the press conference by Bureau of Competition Director Richard Feinstein and Deputy Director Pete Levitas, as well as Bureau of Economics Director Howard Shelansk.

The FTC has been investigating Google for alleged anticompetitive conduct for almost two years now. In November, Bloomberg reported that the FTC was putting pressure on Google to settle the antitrust talks and there were some rumors in December that the FTC was indeed ready to settle with Google before the end of 2012. While the actual investigation took a bit longer, most pundits still expect the FTC to announce a settlement with Google today. What this settlement will look like, though, remains to be seen.

It’s worth noting that Google has settled with the FTC in the past, specifically regarding its practices when it came to bypassing privacy settings in Safari.

The FTC was investigating Google’s business practices and especially allegations that the company was using its dominant position in the search space to stifle competing services. The European Commission is currently running a similar investigation.

A live broadcast of the announcement will be available here shortly.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

 

[Meatytreats]

Short their stock!

 

[conjamuk]

 

[pocketrockets]

Ah, Google no longer allowed to scrape other sites (Yelp, other review sites) ... they were true hypocrites regarding this.

Live_Webcast

 

[HConvert]

"unanimous 5-0 decision to close the search investigation"

Voodoo wins the day

 

[Johnathan]

"unanimous 5-0 decision to close the search investigation"

Corrupted politics wins the day

Fixed.

 

[productionhead]

popcorn.gif

 

[thunderlips]

 

[dmnEPC]

Cuz nobody at the FTC has taken a kickback b4. Inb4 minor smoke screen is put in play, meanwhile its business as usual at google

 

[Kiopa_Matt]

Watched about 10 mins of the stream, and maybe I'm wrong, but didn't hear anything breathtaking. Sounds like it'll be business as usual to me.

The FTC guy constantly said they expect Google to adhere to the agreement, because they're a good company who means well, basically. It was hardly a demand or judgement, or anything of the sort. Heard something about a $16k fine being levied against Google for every count of breaking the agreement of scraping, etc... but that was it.

For some reason, I would say Google execs are laughing and drinking champagne right now, and not shaking in their boots.

 

[natlex]

sooo... Basically the search did nothing? lol.