Legal Research

Obama Administration Decides Google’s a Real Tempting Juicy Target. Beats Having to Fix the Economy.

Less than a week after the DoJ announced it’s looking into antitrust issues wrt the Google Books-Authors Guild settlement, the Federal Trade Commission is now investigating whether Google and Apple violated the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 because they have 2 common directors: Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and Genentech’s CEO Arthur D. Levinson (and a favorite search example of mine when I teach a people search class).

Ordinarily, the common directors would be no big deal. It becomes a problem when the the companies are considered to be competitors of each other. Now, because of the whole iPhone-Android thing, Apple and Google are now competitors. Or so goes the thinking, apparently, within the FTC. Which is ironic, since the iPhone outsells Android by 20-1. But who am I to argue with the Obama administration?

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on May 05, 2009 (boomark / email).