Google: Don’t question us

Google faces an enormous legal challenge in Europe over accusations of anti-competitive behavior. Investigators there charge Google with using its search engine, which dominates the market in Europe, to drive consumers to its own shopping services. It is the first time any regulator has formally charged Google with antitrust violations.

This raises the question – should U.S regulators take another look at Google?

{mosads}In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission staff recommended that it initiate antitrust proceedings against Google, but after a series of high-level meetings, including at the White House, the investigation was shut down. When Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood questioned Google’s practices, the company went to court to block his inquiry. And just as suddenly there was legislation in the Mississippi state House that would have forced the attorney general to get permission to even investigate.

As lore goes, Google’s lawyers warned a U.S. attorney in Rhode Island who had the audacity to claim that the company’s senior leadership knew about a scheme to help overseas drug companies illegally market prescription drugs into the United States. Ultimately, Google paid $500 million to avert prosecution in that case.

When Google found itself in a jam in Texas, it relied on Ted Cruz – before he was elected to the Senate – to convince his old colleagues at the Texas attorney general office to close down its own anti-trust investigation of the company.

And rather than face scrutiny about its data collection efforts for its Street View project, Google instead took a $25,000 fine for obstruction after a company engineer pleaded the 5^th and refused to answer Federal Communications Commission questions.

For a company that prides itself on letting Internet users search and find whatever they want, Google is adamant that it’s own motives and practices remain unchallenged.

In the last two years, the Digital Citizens Alliance, a group I oversee that includes those that believe that Google’s practices have victimized their businesses and given Internet platforms a bad name, has published reports on how easy it was to buy painkillers, steroids, fake passports and even stolen credit cards on YouTube.

Google’s response is to shoot the messenger and claim a dark conspiracy to censor the Internet.  While even Google knows that’s a silly argument, the bigger question is whether there is a governmental body that’s willing to hold the company accountable.

And what should Google be accountable for? As the FTC staff leak shows, there is serious concern that Google manipulated search results to harm competitors. In addition, Google has stood to profit from drug dealers, credit card thieves and passport brokers illegally offering their services on their platforms. In doing so, Google hasn’t followed its own rules for how it vets its business partners.

Who are these “business partners”? Take, for example, the recent revelation that the pro-ISIS groups were posting recruiting videos on Google subsidiary YouTube. Those videos included ads from Budweiser, Secret and Aveeno. Google is supposed to vet producers who monetize their YouTube videos. How did that slip through the cracks? And did Google actually share ad revenues with pro-ISIS groups from those videos?

In recent years there’s been debate about whether powerful banks are untouchable – i.e., “too big to jail” – because they are too important to the economy. Google is starting to creep into that category because it’s simply too powerful to confront.

The answer to whether Google will be held accountable is important to digital citizens. There is no other company in the world that has more influence over the safety of the Internet than Google. It can use its power to make the Internet safer – like it did a decade ago when it started the anti-malware neighborhood watch group Stop Badware – or it can look the other away and let drugs, content theft and stolen goods be sold. Ultimately the choice is Google’s because there isn’t a governmental body in the world that seems prepared to stop them. So we are all really at Google’s whim.

Especially at the FTC, which other than denying the Wall Street Journal’s revelation about the staff push for an inquiry, has not provided any information as to why the commissioners would reject a staff recommendation. That answer is pending.

Google is a $400 billion company that retains powerful lawyers and lobbyists all around the country. That is certainly their right, but it begs a question: is Google more powerful than the government? And if it is, are we comfortable with that?

Galvin is the executive director of the Digital Citizens Alliance.