Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz announced Thursday, Jan. 3 that the FTC has finally put a stop to the two-year investigation about whether Google Inc. manipulates their search results in order to hurt rival search engines.
Instead of referring users to other sites that better suit their needs, Google, the default search engine for Western Washington University's on-campus computers, attempts to directly answer users’ search queries, according to The Hill Congress Blog.
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Although the FTC ended the investigation without finding fault, the commission was able to negotiate with Google, according to a Reuters article. Google agreed to stop scraping reviews from rival websites. When in the process of suing a company that has encroached on standard essential patents, they will no longer request sales bans, according to the Reuters article.
An article from The Los Angeles Times takes us back to the beginning of the investigation. In June 2011, the Google investigation began after many complaints from rival search engines. Federal regulators, state attorney generals and foreign governments began looking at whether Google’s rein over the Internet was harming consumers and shutting out competitors, according to the Times article.
Even with the promises Google has made public, rival websites are still disappointed in the choice the FTC made. According to an article by Reuters, Yelp spokesman Vones Sollitto said the FTC putting an end to the investigation makes it harder to protect innovation in the internet economy.
As of January, 2013 ebizmba.com ranked the top 15 search engines, which is constantly being updated by the websites Global Traffic Rank. Google takes the number one spot with 900 million estimated unique monthly visitors. Bing is second place with 165 million estimated monthly visitors and Yahoo takes third with 160 million.
Western sophomore Spencer Bui believes that the longer he uses Google, the better it is for him in the long run.
“Google takes your search history and tailors your search results to what you're most likely looking for,” Bui said. “It’s the largest search engine in the world. It's been around for a long time and I know and trust that it will give me decent results.”
The FTC believes they did as much as the investigation called for, according to a Reuters article.
“This was an incredibly thorough and careful investigation by the commission and the outcome is a strong and enforceable set of agreements,” Leibowitz said during a press conference Thursday, January 3.
Not only did the FTC upset Bing, Yahoo and Yelp by ending the investigation, it was how they ended it that brought up some sharp question about whether Google would follow through with the promises, according to the Reuters article. In the past, when the FTC has ended an investigation, they have required a consent decree to finish the settlement. For this investigation Google was allowed to write a letter pledging that they will follow through with the agreed-upon changes in the search portion of the probe, according to the article.
Many critics are weary about the conclusion of the investigation and are fiddling with the idea of taking matters into their own hands by discussing the issue with the Department of Justice.
“Some may believe the commission could have done more; some believe we should have done less,” Leibowitz said during the press conference Thursday, January 3. “But we follow the facts where they lead appropriate vigor.”
Source: http://www.westernfrontonline.net/blogs/news/article_ae015262-5cfb-11e2-9c7e-0019bb30f31a.html
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