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When it comes to federal regulatory probes, Google’s Larry Page certainly gets off easy.
The Federal Trade Commission yesterday closed a 20-month probe of Google’s search practices by allowing the Mountain View, Calif., company only to voluntarily remove restrictions on the use of its online search advertising platform.
Google will also allow companies to keep their content out of Google’s search results.
It could have been a lot worse — as the FTC could have forced Page, Google’s CEO, to change Google’s search algorithms.
The FTC kicked off the probe after rivals Microsoft, Yelp and Expedia complained that Google was favoring the companies it owns, such as Zagat, in search results.
“Google’s competitors are looking at this as though it’s a slap on the wrist,” Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a Washington antitrust lawyer, told Bloomberg.
The whimpering end to the FTC probe is hardly a surprise. Sources told The Post in October the regulator was leaning in this direction.
Google over the past year has been trying to boost its Google+ social network, and now might feel free to incorporate Google+ more in its search results, Geoffrey Manne, a lecturer in law at Lewis & Clark University, told The Post.
Microsoft is among several sore losers expressing disappointment in the settlement.
For Google, this is quite a reversal from last September when the US Senate held tough hearings titled “The Power of Google: Serving Customers or Threatening Competition?”
At the hearings, former Department of Justice Anti-Trust Chief Thomas Barnett said, “There is reason to believe that Google is using its extraordinary power to manipulate users and foreclose the ability of other sites to compete. If so, Google should be found to be violating the antitrust laws and an appropriate remedy should be imposed.”
Manne said the FTC is sensitive to politics and conducted a tough, years-long investigation.