America’s top trade watchdog has rejected accusations it took no legal action to curb Google’s dominance in search because of intensive lobbying by the software giant.
Google staff donations made the firm the second-largest corporate backer in Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
The Wall Street Journal this week revealed that Google employees had lobbied the White House 230 times since Obama first took office, in 2009, and that the search company employs 20 separate lobbying agencies.
The chairwoman of America’s Federal Trade Commission, Edith Ramirez, issued a statement on Wednesday night rejecting accusations in the Journal that the regulator had ignored the advice of its own staff in deciding to close its Google investigation.
“Contrary to recent press reports, the Commission’s decision on the search allegations was in accord with the recommendations of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Economics, and Office of General Counsel,” Ramirez wrote.
The statement was signed by two other serving commissioners. The remaining two members of the five-strong commission were not serving in early 2013, when the FTC settled with Google after extracting voluntary concessions from the company.
Ramirez said: “Some of the FTC’s staff attorneys on the search investigation raised concerns about several other Google practices. In response, the Commission obtained commitments from Google regarding certain of those practices. Over the last two years, Google has abided by those commitments.”
The Journal has obtained and published a partial copy of a 2012 report by FTC staff in which serious concerns were raised about Google’s practices.
In the strongly worded document, FTC staff identify risks in bringing legal action against Google, but state: “Staff concludes that Google’s conduct has resulted – and will result – in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets. Google has strengthened its monopolies over search and search advertising through anticompetitive means, and has forestalled competitors’ and would-be competitors’ ability to challenge those monopolies, and this will have lasting negative effects on consumer welfare.”
The debate is being closely watched in Europe, where competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager must soon decide whether to step up a long-drawn-out inquiry into Google search practices. The European commission probe began in 2010 and remains open after the rejection of three successive packages of voluntary concessions.
Ramirez blasted suggestions that commissioners had been politically influenced. She said: “Today’s Wall Street Journal article … makes a number of misleading inferences and suggestions about the integrity of the FTC’s investigation. The article suggests that a series of disparate and unrelated meetings involving FTC officials and executive branch officials or Google representatives somehow affected the Commission’s decision to close the search investigation in early 2013. Not a single fact is offered to substantiate this misleading narrative.”
In an emailed statement, the Journal defended its reporting as “careful, accurate and fair”.
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