Senators Want Oversight Review Of Obama FTC’s Google Deal

Three senators are demanding the Senate Judiciary Committee convene a hearing examining new alarm over the Obama-era Federal Trade Commission’s decision not to take antitrust action against Google a decade ago.

Their request comes after new reporting by POLITICO showed the FTC declined to act despite evidence of potential violations of the law that came to light in the agency’s 19-month investigation into the search giant.

POLITICO, which published its reports this week, had obtained hundreds of pages of previously undisclosed confidential documents about the case.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mike Lee of Utah and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee sent letters Thursday to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and acting FTC Chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter demanding a public session to “conduct oversight into enforcement — or underenforcement — of our nation’s antitrust laws,” including testimony from top Google executives and then-FTC commissioners.

“The reporting confirms what has become increasingly apparent in recent years: Confronted with the most consequential antitrust case in a generation and ample evidence of market dominance and misconduct, the nation’s antitrust enforcers failed to act,” the senators wrote to Durbin. “The FTC’s inaction has had broad-sweeping implications for our economy, our culture and our democracy … far beyond the actions and market power of a single firm.”

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