Google to face fresh anti-trust investigation

Search firm Google may be in for a fresh antitrust investigation, over its display advertising business.

Due to its size and influence, Google faces regular accusations of stifling online competition. The company has tangled with regulators in the US and Europe and has been involved in many investigations.

According to Bloomberg, a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation would be under way that would look at whether Google used its position in the display ads market to favour its own services.

An earlier investigation by the FTC ended with a mild enforcement action and although according to FTC Google had done wrong, the admonishment it delivered was like a light tap on the knuckles for the company.

According to the FTC, Google had undoubtedly taken aggressive actions to gain advantage over rival search providers, but it stopped short of saying that it was anticompetitive or acting illegally. As part of the deal, Google would need to license its standards essential patents, including those it got with Motorola, under fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms.

This did not go down very well with rival search provider Microsoft, which expressed its desire to see Google face regulators, until those regulators got it right and crippled it.

According to Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner, that was certainly consistent with the lack of change the company continued to witness as it and many others experienced ongoing harm to competition in the marketplace.

He said the company remained hopeful that agencies would stick to their established procedures, ensured transparency and obtained the additional relief needed to address the serious competition law concerns that remained.

FTC investigators would examine whether Google was using its position in US display ads -- a $17.7 billion industry that included the sale of banner ads on websites -- to push companies to use more of its other services, a practice that could be illegal under antitrust laws, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar to the matter. Google has been drawing regulatory scrutiny across the world as it sought to bolster its market share of digital advertising.

Canada's Competition Bureau was also in the process of launching a formal inquiry into Google's search practices, the company disclosed last week. The EU was investigating Google for the manner in which it operated the search business and had also opened a probe into its handset unit, Motorola Mobility, over the licensing of its patents to rival device makers. Antitrust agencies in Argentina and South Korea were also conducting a scrutiny of the company.