Google Said to Be Possible Target of Antitrust Probe by FTC

The Federal Trade Commission is considering a broad antitrust investigation into Google’s dominance of the Internet-search industry. Before proceeding with any probe, the FTC is awaiting a decision by the Justice Department on whether it will challenge Google’s planned acquisition of ITA Software as a threat to competition in the travel-information search business. An FTC investigation of Google, the world’s most popular search engine, “could be on par” with the scope of the Justice Department’s probe of Microsoft Corp. a decade ago, said Keith Hylton, an antitrust law professor at Boston University School of Law. Google “could fight the FTC, but that’s going to cost a lot of money and time.”