Federal regulators are expected to close a year-long probe of Google’s search business without finding any antitrust violations, The Post has learned.
The Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce before the end of the year that Google’s search engine did not cause any consumer harm or favor its own businesses, sources close to the situation said.
Critics and rivals had complained to the FTC that Google’s algorithms favored its own Web pages over rivals — kicking off an FTC probe.
The complaints, Reuters reports, include taking information from non-Google websites to use on Google products — while preventing the export of data on advertising effectiveness to non-Google software so ad campaigns could be evaluated.
Similar complaints are being probed in Europe.
Google’s critics, perhaps sensing the FTC probe would end without finding any antitrust violations, appear prepared to take their grievances to the US Justice Department, Reuters reports.
At least one Google adversary met with Justice Department officials recently, pressing them to investigate if the FTC fails to get a satisfactory settlement on search or litigate against Google, sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
In addition, Google and the FTC are expected to announce a settlement over attempts by the Mountain View, Calif., company to block access to key smartphone-technology covered by its patents, Bloomberg reports.
Google declined comment.
The FTC will probably announce this week that it has reached a consent decree that would limit Google’s ability to stop the sale of Apple and Microsoft products that rely on standard essential patents, or SEPs, Bloomberg, citing three people familiar with the matter, reported.
Google claims the rivals’ devices infringe on patents of its Motorola Mobility unit.
Bloomberg reports that the decree would not ban Google completely from seeking injunctions against its rivals.
Separately, the US Senate’s Commerce Committee is expected to vote next week on Josh Wright’s nomination to be one of five FTC Commissioners, sources said.
Wright, at a committee hearing last week, said he would recuse himself from voting on Google-related topics for two years, but was not clear if he would weigh in after that time, a source close to the hearings said.
George Mason University professor Wright has reportedly received funding for his work from Google, and has co-authored a paper “Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google.”