September 9, 2010 · Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has Google in his crosshairs. It has to do with suspicion over whether the internet giant is gaming search results to harm competitors.
The Texas Attorney General's office confirms it has launched an anti-trust review of Google, but will say nothing beyond that. Google reports the Texas AG's office has asked for information on three companies. All three have tenuous links to Microsoft, which operates
search engine Bing. That's fueling speculation that Microsoft is
somehow pulling the strings at the AG's office. Political observer Harvey Kronberg of the website the Quorum Report doubts it.
Kronberg: "Microsoft has not had a major, major presence in Texas government. They do have some lobbyists, but it would surprise me if there was any kind of relationship between the attorney general and a company that precipitated this."
SearchEngineLand.com first broke the story about the Texas AG's anti-trust probe. Their editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan says one of Google's biggest challenges is that the company assumes everyone knows how its search works.
Sullivan: "Inherently, they understand that they have a Church and State divide in the way that a lot of newspapers do, where the ads do not influence the editorial. So you've got people who may make those assumptions."
Some people are asking the government to regulate search engines to ensure search results are transparent and non-discriminatory. Others, like new media professor Jeff Jarvis at City University in New York, say there is no need for regulation of so-called search neutrality.
Jarvis: "That's like saying that Best Buy has to practice stereo neutrality, that they should carry every stereo in the world and carry them all the same. Google's reputation with us, the users, depends on it giving us quality search results."
It's not just the Texas Attorney General who has Google in his sights.
The European Union's antitrust agency is investigating similar allegations over search results. It involves one of the same companies. And the US Justice Department is examining whether Google's purchase of an airline ticketing firm will cost rivals access to the data they need to compete.
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