A senator in the Tea Party Caucus urged a hearing...
A senator in the Tea Party Caucus urged a hearing on Google business practices. “The powerful position Google occupies in the general search arena creates myriad opportunities for anticompetitive behavior,” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Lee, R-Utah, said…
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in a letter last week to Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. There have been “serious questions concerning whether Google has acted to harm competition,” Lee said. “Among other things, commentators have expressed concern that Google may be using its position to harm specialized (or so-called ‘vertical') search sites.” Also, Lee wants the Justice Department to “investigate whether Google’s powerful position as an Internet gatekeeper reduces the company’s incentive to compete with other search engines by providing enhanced privacy protection for consumers,” he said. “The combination of behavioral and personal information enables Google to generate consumer data that is unprecedented in scale and scope,” Lee said. “These activities raise serious privacy concerns and may be indicative of an important market that is largely unconstrained by competition. Antitrust enforcement may unlock beneficial competition for the protection of user privacy and avert the need for additional privacy regulation.” A Google spokesman responded, “Given our success and the disruptive nature of the Internet, we know that scrutiny comes with the territory, but we're committed to making search even better for consumers."