dramatic scenario, a case might be made for
breaking the companies into smaller pieces.
The U.S. Justice Department is readying an
investigation of Google’s business practices in
search and other areas, and whether they violate
antitrust law, according to news reports. Neither
the company nor the Justice Department will
confirm or deny that a probe has been launched.
The Federal Trade Commission, which shares
competition oversight with Justice, made an
antitrust investigation of Google but closed it in
2013 without taking action.
The company made changes voluntarily after
the FTC probe, including letting advertisers use
information from their Google ad campaigns
to create campaigns with rivals. But an FTC
staff report released years later showed that
the agency staff had urged the presidentially-
appointed commissioners to bring a lawsuit
against Google. That never happened.
It isn’t clear what specific areas of Google’s
business the Justice Department might be
probing. But here are some possible areas U.S.
antitrust cops might poke into.
ADS
Google commands the lead in digital ad
revenue by a wide margin, controlling 31.1%
of global digital ad dollars, according to
eMarketer’s 2019 estimates. Facebook is a
distant second with 20.2%.
European antitrust regulators slapped Google
in March with a $1.7 billion fine for freezing out
rivals in the online advertising business — the
regulators’ third big fine against the company in
less than two years.
Still, the latest penalty isn’t likely to have much
effect on Google’s business. It applies to a