The US Justice Department is preparing to launch an antitrust investigation of Google, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. According to Reuters, the investigation may centre on whether Google favours its own services over third party providers on its search engine.
The department’s antitrust division in recent weeks has been laying the groundwork for the probe, the WSJ report said. The Federal Trade Commission, which shares competition authority with the department, previously conducted a broad investigation of Google but closed it in 2013 without taking action, though Google made some voluntary changes to certain business practices.
The FTC and the department have been in talks recently on who would oversee any new antitrust investigation of a leading US tech giant, and the commission agreed to give the Justice Department jurisdiction over Google, the report said.
The WSJ report did not say where the DoJ's investigation would focus at Google. One source told Reuters that the potential investigation focused on accusations that Google gave preference to its own businesses in searches. The company was fined EUR 2.4 billion by the European Union in June 2017 for such offences and agreed to change how it ranked search results.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said he could not confirm or deny that an investigation was being considered. Google declined to comment.
