US: Senators want FTC to disclose whether it is investigating Google

Senators Marsha Blackburn (Republican – Tennessee) and Amy Klobuchar (Democrat – Minnesota) sent a letter on Monday, April 8, to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting it take action on Facebook and Google’s potential anticompetitive behavior and violations of American privacy, reported the Hill.

In a statement, Blackburn said she hoped the “bipartisan effort” would “shed light” on the country’s largest tech companies.

Klobuchar and Blackburn in the letter asked the FTC to disclose whether it is investigating Google and to provide details on ongoing investigations into major online platforms.

“We understand that the FTC does not typically comment on nonpublic investigations, but the public discussion surrounding Google and other companies’ conduct have made this a uniquely important national issue,” the senators, both prominent tech critics, wrote in the letter.

“Accordingly, we respectfully request that the FTC consider publicly disclosing whether it is conducting an investigation of Google and/or other major online platforms and describe, in general terms, the nature of the conduct under examination in any such investigations,” they added.

The FTC, the federal agency overseeing consumer protection and antitrust cases, closed an antitrust probe into Google without a major enforcement action in 2013.