US: Senator ask FTC to reopen Google antitrust suit

As European regulators dangle the antitrust hammer above Google’s head, the search engine’s rivals are trying feverishly to stir up similar charges in Washington, D.C.

Case in point: At a Senate Judiciary hearing on Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal pushed for the Federal Trade Commission to crack open a new case against Google for preferential treatment of its own content in search results. The senator’s primary witness was Tim Wu, the former FTC adviser (and current New York Attorney General consigliere) who rather publicly reversed his position on the case.

For certain search results, like the weather, Wu claimed it’s kosher for Google to move its own results to the top. For others, namely local search options, he claimed it’s not.

“What’s been proven is that, in certain areas, Google is manipulating its search in an anticompetitive way,” he said at the Senate hearing. “I think Google is, at this point, at a different position than it was then. There’s stronger evidence of consumer harm now than when the FTC closed its investigation.”

Full content: TheHill

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