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Consumer Watchdog said it welcomed the ongoing investigation into Google Books by the DoJ, and the Federal Trade Commission’s probe into the AdMob buy, but said it was: “past time to act against Google’s monopolistic and pervasive power over the entire Internet”.
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Consumer Watchdog released its letter (PDF) to the Justice Department today at a news conference called “The Antitrust Case Against Google,” which was held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Other participants were Joseph Bial, special counsel at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who represents myTriggers.com and TradeComet.com.; Simon Buckingham, a New York based Internet and mobile entrepreneur; and Gary Reback, an attorney with Carrell & Ferrell and a founder of the Open Book Alliance.
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Google’s treatment of rivals “warrants a full-blown investigation,” John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said in Washington. Breaking up the company “should be on the table,” he said.
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An independent consumer group will today call on the Department of Justice to consider breaking Google up because of uncompetitive practices. Consumer Watchdog says the $23 billion corporation, which holds more than 70 percent of the search market, has a stranglehold on the market.
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Privacy advocates. The Federal Trade Commission. The Chinese government. They’ve all been on Google’s back recently. And it seems the company is now on Consumer Watchdog’s blacklist as well. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based consumer advocacy group is lobbying the U.S. Department of Justice to begin an antitrust investigation into the search giant. In fact, the argument has also been made that the company may need to be broken up.
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Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, revealed today that Google upped its spending on Washington lobbyists by a mammoth 57% from the same period last year. Lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Senate Office of Public Affairs show that the firm handed over $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2010, compared with $880,000 in 2009.
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The U.S. Department of Justice should launch a broad antitrust investigation into Google’s search and advertising practices and consider a wide array of penalties, including possibly breaking the company up, a consumer group said Wednesday. Consumer Watchdog, along with a mobile entrepreneur and two lawyers representing Google rivals, all called on the DOJ to initiate an antitrust investigation focusing on a number of issues, including Google’s marriage of search results to advertising and its book search service.
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Consumer groups and privacy watchdogs suspicious of Google Creep — its growing size and extension on the Web — are looking at Google’s moves in Washington, D.C., with the flinty enthusiasm of fire and brimstone preachers.
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Consumer Watchdog today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a broad antitrust action against Google seeking remedial action that could include breaking the Internet giant into separate companies.
Blog Post
In a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the “unprecedented” coalition of privacy czars from Europe, Canada and Israel described the surprise conversion of Google’s private email service to a public social networking service without informing users as a violation of “the fundamental principle that individuals should be able to control the use of their personal information.”
