A leaked Google FTC report that found its way into the hands of The Wall Street Journal is raising some eyebrows about Google’s business practices. The Wall Street Journal requested some public records from the FTC and this report was found among the documents and likely didn’t belong on public record. The report says the FTC staff determined that Google’s business model caused “real harm to consumers and to innovation.” The 2012 report also has the FTC recommending a lawsuit against Google.
Google has long been accused of “playing the numbers” with its search engine results, placing their own results above competitors even if the competitor offered better services. One of the more interesting accusations in the report is Google “scraping” other sites for information and using that in their own listings.
Google also copied, or “scraped,” content from rivals such as TripAdvisor and Amazon.com, and threatened to remove those sites from its search listing if they objected, the Journal reported. In one instance, Google used Amazon’s sales rankings to determine how it ranked products for its own listings, it said.
The report goes on to talk about Google’s advertising practices saying that Google violated antitrust laws by restricting advertisers from running campaigns on rival search engines. It is important to point out that ultimately the FTC closed the case on Google when the company promised to change some ways it does business but this leaked report does shed some light into the company and its practices. It’s a good reminder that what you see in the public eye and media about a company isn’t always what you’re getting. Head over to the source link for even more coverage. What do you think of this leaked FTC report? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
[button link=”http://www.computerworld.com/article/2899491/leaked-us-antitrust-report-on-google-adds-weight-to-rivals-complaints.html” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Computer World[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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