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Tuesday 10 sepTember 2019
States led by Texas target Google in new antitrust probe

BY RACHEL LERMAN and and state regulators and
MARCY GORDON policymakers are growing
Associated Press more concerned not just
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fifty with the company’s impact
U.S. states and territories, on ordinary internet users,
led by Texas, announced but also on smaller compa-
an investigation into nies striving to compete in
Google’s “potential mo- Google’s markets.
nopolistic behavior.” “On the one hand, you
The Monday announce- could just say, ‘well Google
ment closely followed one is dominant because
from a separate group of they’re good,’” said Jen
states Friday that disclosed King, the director of privacy
an investigation into Face- at Stanford’s Center for In-
book’s market dominance. ternet and Society. “But at
The two probes widen the the same time, it’s created
antitrust scrutiny of big an ecosystem where peo-
tech companies beyond ple’s whole internet experi-
sweeping federal and con- ence is mediated through
gressional investigations Google’s home page and
and enforcement action Google’s other products.”
by European regulators. For instance, Google’s
Nebraska attorney gen- In this May 1, 2019, file photo a man walks past a Google sign outside with a span of the Bay search platform is often the
eral Doug Peterson, a Re- Bridge at rear in San Francisco. starting point for millions of
publican, said at a press Associated Press people when they go on-
conference held in Wash- eral Steve Marshall, also although several suggest- acquisition Google scored line. Google dwarfs other
ington that 50 attorneys said the state’s legal team ed scrutiny of the compa- in 2006. Google has long search competitors and
general joining together had no comment on the ny’s dominant search and argued that although its has faced harsh criticism in
sends a “strong message to probe. advertising businesses. businesses are large, they the past for favoring its own
Google.” California and Al- The news conference fea- Critics often point to are useful and beneficial to products over competitors
abama are not part of the tured a dozen Republican Google’s 2007 acquisition consumers. “Google is one at the top of search re-
investigation, although it attorneys general plus the of online advertising com- of America’s top spenders sults. European regulators
does include the District of Democratic attorney gen- pany DoubleClick as piv- on research and develop- also have investigated in
Columbia and Puerto Rico. eral of Washington, D.C. otal to its advertising domi- ment, making investments this area, ultimately fin-
Google is headquartered Google’s parent company, nance. that spur innovation,” wrote ing Google for promoting
in California and employs Alphabet, has a market Europe’s antitrust regula- Kent Walker, the compa- its own shopping service.
more workers there than in value of more than $820 bil- tors slapped Google with a ny’s senior vice president Google is appealing the
any other region. Google lion and controls so many $1.7 billion fine in March for of global affairs, in a blog fine. Google will control
also broke ground last year facets of the internet that unfairly inserting exclusivity post Friday . On Monday, 31.1% of global digital ad
on a $600 million data-cen- it’s almost impossible to surf clauses into contracts with Google referred reporters dollars in 2019, according
ter project in Alabama. the web for long without advertisers, disadvantag- to that earlier post. to eMarketer estimates,
Tara Gallegos, a spokes- running into at least one of ing rivals in the online ad “Things that were science crushing a distant second-
woman for California Attor- its services. Google’s domi- business. fiction a few years ago are place Facebook. Many
ney General Xavier Becer- nance in online search and One outcome antitrust now free for everyone — smaller advertisers have
ra, declined to confirm or advertising enables it to regulators might explore is translating any language argued that Google has
deny any state investiga- target millions of consumers forcing Google to spin off instantaneously, learning such a stranglehold on the
tion and would not com- for their personal data. search as a separate com- about objects by point- market that it becomes a
ment on the announce- The state officials assem- pany, experts say. Regula- ing your phone, getting an system of whatever Google
ment by the other states. bled in Washington were tors also could focus on ar- answer to pretty much any says, goes — because the
Mike Lewis, a spokesman vague about the focus and eas such as Google’s pop- question you might have,” alternative could be not
for Alabama Attorney Gen- scope of the investigation, ular video site YouTube, an Walker wrote. But federal reaching customers. q

Court rules startup may collect data from LinkedIn profiles

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals LinkedIn appealed. LinkedIn, which is
court has affirmed the right of a startup owned by Microsoft Corp., said it is disap-
company to collect information from peo- pointed in the decision and evaluating
ple’s public profiles on networking service options for an appeal. HiQ did not immedi-
LinkedIn. ately respond for a message for comment
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir- Monday.
cuit in San Francisco upheld a previous Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University
ruling Monday siding with hiQ Labs, a San of California, Berkeley called the ruling a
Francisco company that analyzes work- “major decision for the open internet.”
force data scraped from profiles. “It doesn’t establish that scraping websites
LinkedIn invoked a federal anti-hacking is completely legal, but it goes a long way
law in telling hiQ to stop. toward establishing that it’s not a federal
It also installed technical blocks to prevent crime,” he said.
hiQ from accessing otherwise publicly The decision, he added, means that, while

This Sept. 22, 2016, file photo shows a sculpture on a terrace available information on LinkedIn users. a hacker could be arrested for breaking
outside the offices of LinkedIn in San Francisco. A 2017 ruling ordered LinkedIn to stop into a website, a person “can’t be arrest-
Associated Press blocking the startup. ed and prosecuted just for visiting it.”q