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Texas Opens Inquiry Into Google Search Rankings 178

Posted by timothy
from the when-governments-attack dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The AP reports that Texas' attorney general, Greg Abbott, has opened an anti-trust investigation against Google spurred by complaints that the company has abused its power as the Internet's dominant search engine. The review appears to be focused on whether Google is manipulating its search results to stifle competition. European regulators already have been investigating complaints alleging that Google has been favoring its own services in its results instead of rival websites and several lawsuits have also been filed in the US that have alleged Google's search formula is biased. However Google believes Abbott is the first state attorney general to open an antitrust review into the issue."
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Texas Opens Inquiry Into Google Search Rankings More

Texas Opens Inquiry Into Google Search Rankings

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  • It's only natural.. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by david_bandel (909002) on Saturday September 04 2010, @08:24AM (#33474242)
    It's a very simple, easy to obfuscate (cover up) search results manipulation that could quite easily make a multi-hundred millions dollar difference for the company. Why on Earth would Google, if it could (and it can) NOT do something like this? Just look at their support of Chinese communism and ask yourself if the company is above doing anything for a buck.

  • Re:When you can't compete, sue... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tomhath (637240) on Saturday September 04 2010, @08:56AM (#33474360)
    Google has hinted pretty strongly that Microsoft is behind these lawsuits [blogspot.com]. That wouldn't surprise me. My guess is that the real goal here is to force Google to make their ranking algorithm public.

  • Re:More on this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jedi Alec (258881) on Saturday September 04 2010, @09:05AM (#33474420)

    If Google is listing its own products above those of their competitors, they're doing a pretty shitty job. Doing a google search for "search engine" gets me a wiki, an aggregator site, Altavista, Bing and then Google ;-)

    The first news result is about Google facing some sort of Texas AG inquiry though...

  • Re:When you can't compete, sue... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hedwards (940851) on Saturday September 04 2010, @09:34AM (#33474554)
    Doesn't matter who it is, the reality is that Google should never have been allowed to grow so large via acquisitions. It still blows my mind that the DoJ didn't see any problems with them buying out their nearest competitor in the online advertisement space, when they were already number one. While I doubt this suit in particular has merit, it's almost assured that Google isn't as not evil as they'd like us to believe.

  • Re:There's no solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MBC1977 (978793) on Saturday September 04 2010, @10:11AM (#33474716) Journal
    It may become moot anyway; Google's exclusive license to the Pagerank algorithm expires in 2011. And while I suspect they will throw a chunk of money at Stanford to re-license the technology,
    I could honestly see several potential alternatives:

    (1) Microsoft and / or Yahoo paying Stanford NOT to grant Google a new, exclusive license.

    (2) Stanford (in the interest of advancing technology) NOT granting Google a new, exclusive license.

    or (3) any number of various governments (to include the U.S. government) wringing some sort of concessions (let your imagination wonder about this one...)

Your step will soil many countries.