Yesterday, the Department of Justice hired one of the nation’s best antitrust litigators, Sanford Litvak, to help assess the evidence regarding the proposed deal between Google and Yahoo!.В The fact that the DOJ hired outside counsel is a strong signal that it is prepared to litigate against Google.В The DOJ has been taking depositions and issuing document subpoenas in past weeks.В Additionally, groups such as the Association of National Advertisers have contacted the DOJ recommending against the proposed deal.В Antitrust litigation would likely be narrowly focused on the proposed deal, but there is a chance that the DOJ could challenge the broader aspects of Google’s online advertising dominance.
Perhaps in response, today Google said it will cut the time it stores users’ personally identifiable search data to nine months from 18 months.В Google claims this new policy will hamper its ability to deliver the most relevant search results and advertisements, but we believe that nine months of data should be more than sufficient to provide the most relevant search results possible.
These recent events indicate that Google will likely face heavy scrutiny much like Microsoft did in the late 1990s with their own antitrust issues.В Stay tuned….
