Texas Attorney General Launches Antitrust Investigation into Google Search
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is taking on one of the Internet’s Goliaths—Google—in an antitrust probe.
The Internet behemoth disclosed Friday that Abbott’s office had launched a review of Google’s search engine rankings.
In a corporate blog post, Google’s deputy general counsel, Don Harrison, said the Silicon Valley company looks forward to answering Abbott’s questions “because we’re confident that Google operates in the best interests of our users.”
A spokesman for Abbott confirmed the antitrust investigation but declined to comment further, according to The Associated Press.
The Texas review appears to be focused on whether Google is manipulating its search results to stifle competition, AP reported.
“Occasionally, we’re asked about the ‘fairness’ of our search engine—why do some websites get higher rankings than others?” Harrison wrote. “The important thing to remember is that we built Google to provide the most useful, relevant search results and ads for users. In other words, our focus is on users, not websites.
“Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it’s unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking.”
Harrison said the Texas Attorney General’s Office has asked for information about three companies that have complained about Google’s search engine rankings—Foundem, a British price comparison site; SourceTool, a business-to-business search engine run by TradeComet; and, myTriggers, a comparison shopping search engine.
Harrison said all three of those companies have ties to software behemoth Microsoft Corp., which operates the Bing search engine.
“We work hard to explain our approach to search and how our ranking works, and we also listen carefully to people’s concerns … . We strongly believe our business practices reflect our commitment to build great products for the benefit of users everywhere,” Harrison said.
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