Google Denies Tampering Search Service

Executive Chairman Erik Schmidt is set to defend the company's business practices at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, batting down criticism from other Web sites that the largest provider of Internet searches is manipulating its online-search system to steer users to its own sites.The clash, in a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee, pits the search giant against review and shopping sites such as Yelp! Inc. and Nextag Inc. It brings to Capitol Hill a fight that has most loudly been waged in Silicon Valley, and holds the potential to expose Google to a new level of scrutiny in Washington.

"As Internet search has become a major channel of e-commerce, Google has grown ever more dominant and powerful, and it appears its mission has changed," Senate Judiciary subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D, Wisc.) is set to say at the start of the hearing. He will say that a string of acquisitions "has transformed Google from a mere search engine into a major Internet conglomerate" and ask: "Does Google's transformation create an inherent conflict of interest which threatens to stifle competition?" “May I simply say that I can assure you we're not cooking anything,” the Telegraph quoted Schmidt, as saying.“Google does nothing to block access to any of the competitors and other sources of information,” he added.

"Today, Google doesn't play fair," Katz, who earlier founded the travel comparison site Orbitz, will say in prepared testimony. "Google rigs its results, biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us. As a result, Nextag's access is more and more discriminated against. Not because our service has gotten worse...but because we compete with Google where it matters most, for very lucrative shopping users."Stoppelman will add that "Google is no longer in the business of sending people to the best sources of information on the web. It now hopes to be a destination site itself." He will say that Google has been unfairly taking content from competitors--and then agreeing to stop only if other sites agree to be removed from searches.

"This, of course, was a false choice," Stoppelman will say. "Google's dominant position in the market prevents services like Yelp from exercising any sort of meaningful choice in the matter: it is a choice between allowing Google to co-opt one's content and not competing at all." “We get it. By that I mean, we get the lessons of our corporate predecessors,” Schmidt added in reference to software giant Microsoft, which faced years of anti-competition investigations and subsequent fines.Concern over Google's domination of the internet has grown as the company continues to expand into other internet areas, such as its own price comparison website and buying US mobile phone firm Motorola Mobility.

But Thomas Barnett, a former Justice Department antitrust chief who is representing a coalition of web sites, including Expedia, will testify that "there is reason to believe that Google is using its extraordinary power to manipulate users and foreclose the ability of other sites to compete. If so, Google should be found to be violating the antitrust laws and an appropriate remedy should be imposed."