For awhile now everyone's favorite search giant, Google, has been getting flack from competitors for, they say, unfairly putting its own products ahead in its supposedly neutral search results. And now the Federal Trade Commission appears to be listening. The Wall Street Journal reports today that the FTC is poised to serve the company with civil subpoenas in the coming days that could signal "the start of a wide-ranging, formal investigation into whether the Internet-search giant has abused its dominance on the Web."
Google, which handles two-thirds of the searches in the U.S. and even more in other parts of the world (like Europe, where the EU is also investigating the company), has faced antitrust investigations in the U.S. before, but those have generally looked at its mergers and acquisitions. Of course proving that Google has a monopoly and is abusing it is going to be an uphill battle, but why not?
The FTC's plan to start sending subpoenas is the first sure signal that its commissioners "have decided there is enough evidence to move forward with a formal investigation. The FTC's probe is expected to take a year or more to unfold."
Meanwhile, maybe Google needs to be a little more discrete with its group interviews? One recent interviewee who describes herself as "one of the heavier girls" has turned to Jezebel to complain about a group interview for an admin position in which, after taking an exam where two-out-of-three of the questions were about fitness, the company seemed to systematically weed out the fat people.
