The US Department of justice is preparing for an antitrust investigation against Google, the newspaper Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. It noted that this investigation will be a new level of regulatory control for the company.
According to the newspaper, the Federal Trade Commission and the Ministry of justice decided among themselves who will conduct the investigation. The Commission gave way to the Ministry of justice, which has already begun to study methods of work related to the search engine and other Google services.
Earlier, the European Commission fined the Corporation on € 1.5 billion for abuse of a dominant position in the market of Internet advertising. We are talking about the Google-owned platform for placing contextual advertising AdSense, whose customers were required to sign a contract prohibiting them from publishing advertising from Google competitors in search results.
This was the third time in two years that the EU has fined for violating antitrust laws. In July last year, the European authorities have fined the Corporation on €4.3 billion for the fact that she was compelled smartphone manufacturers to preinstall services and applications Google. In June 2017, Google was fined on € 2.4 billion — then it was accused that it provided an advantage in the search results of its own Google Shopping service to the detriment of other aggregators of goods.
