Google Responds to 'Inaccuracies' in WSJ Reports on FTC Not Suing It
“Given the inaccuracies that have been published” in the media, specifically by The Wall Street Journal, Google Senior Vice President-Communications and Policy Rachel Whetstone said in a blog post Friday, the company wanted to share its side of the story.…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
In response to The WSJ’s report saying FTC commissioners voted unanimously to end the investigation into Google despite the Competition Bureau recommending legal action be taken, Google said The WSJ chose not to report what “the FTC made clear this week,” (see 1503260030) which is the Commission’s decision was in accord with the recommendations made by the Competition Bureau, Economics Bureau and Office of General Counsel. With respect to The WSJ reporting Google employees have met with senior officials about 230 times since President Barack Obama took office, compared to Comcast employees visiting 20 times, Google said the reporting was inaccurate. “Our employment records show that 33 of the White House visits were by people not employed here at the time,” Whetstone said. More than five visits involved a Google engineer “on leave helping to fix technical issues with the government’s Healthcare.gov website (something he’s been very public about),” Whetstone said. “Checking through White House records for other companies, our team counted around 270 visits for Microsoft over the same time frame and 150 for Comcast.” The meetings Google employees had with senior officials “were not to discuss the antitrust investigation” but issues such as patent reform, science, technology, engineering and math education, self-driving cars, mental health, advertising, Internet censorship, smart contact lenses, cloud computing, cybersecurity and energy efficiency, Whetstone said. Directing her comments to Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, the Journal's owner, she wrote: “We understand you have a new found love of the regulatory process, especially in Europe, but as the FTC’s Bureau of Competition staff concluded, Google has strong pro-competitive arguments on our side.” Like the FTC, the Texas and Ohio Attorneys General “closed their comprehensive competition investigations into Google in 2014,” Whetstone said. “Courts in Germany and Brazil found that there is no basis in the law for Google competitors to dictate Google’s search results." The WSJ had no immediate comment.