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Google's Woes Provide Object Lesson for Other Large Corporations

Google's recent struggles in the U.S. regarding antitrust legislation may finally be over. However, the search engine giant still faces significant challenges in the European marketplace over what some perceive as unfair competitive practices and unethical tactics in favoring its own proprietary services and paid advertisers overequally worthy independent entities. This may serve as a warning to other major corporations in the U.S. market that the Federal Trade Commission will be examining and, where appropriate, cracking down on companies that engage in these types of practices in the competitive marketplace.

Google was targeted for investigation primarily on the basis of search bias; critics charged that Google unfairly gave improved search engine rankings and positions to companies with whom it did business or in which it had a proprietary interest. Google has not denied these claims; rather, the company has indicated that it believes this to be an acceptable business practice in the profit-driven Internet sector. Most experts believe that the Federal Trade Commission will refrain from addressing this issue because it does not strictly fall into the category of antitrust legislation. Rather, the Federal Trade Commission and Google are rumored to have reached a voluntary agreement in which Google will adhere to certain conditions:

Google will cease collecting reviews and ratings from other sites and aggregating them under Google's own review headings. This was deemed an infringement of the rights of these third-party sites.

Google will make certain concessions regarding its exclusivity agreements in the online advertising field to allow fair competition in the Internet environment.

Google will allow fair licensing agreements with its competitors for patents it acquired during its 2012 acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

Google's antitrust headaches may have been prompted, in part, by concerns raised by Microsoft and other competitors that Google's dominant position in the worldwide search engine marketplace constituted an illegal monopoly within the industry.

While few companies can claim the same level of dominance in their particular marketplace, most larger corporations retain the services of a comprehensive commercial finance law firm to address issues like those currently faced by Google. The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, for example, presented significant antitrust and patent protection issues. By acting in a proactive way to protect the company's national and international interests throughout the acquisition process, law firms can provide solid protection for their corporate clients and can help to avoid legal entanglements and difficulties like those encountered by Google in the U.S. and European regulatory arenas.

This post and comment(s) reflect the personal perspectives of community members, and not necessarily those of their employers or of AIIM International