Good Thing Larry Has Little Patience for Government!
Larry Page has a lot to look forward to as his tenure as CEO of Google begins: a European probe of the company’s search and advertising operations, a Texas investigation into allegations of “manual overriding or altering of” search result rankings, and perhaps that long-in-the-works Federal Trade Commission probe as well.
A regulatory nightmare trifecta!
People “familiar with the matter” tell Bloomberg the FTC is mulling a probe into Google’s dominance of the search engine market, but is waiting to act until the Justice Department decides whether or not to challenge the company’s planned acquisition of ITA Software.
News of the probe follows Google’s recent settlement with the FTC over charges that its Buzz social network violated privacy rights of users by stupidly transforming our private Gmail address books into public social networks without permission.