Why Google’s homepage antics are more serious than they appear

Google’s use of its homepage to advertise its own products and display pop-up birthday reminders for its Google+ network on its homepage may seem like just an annoyance, but each step the company takes toward promoting its own offerings raises more red flags for antitrust regulators.

Google’s original mandate was to “organize the world’s information,” but many of its recent moves seem designed to own the world’s information instead, or at least to control access to it. That may be in Google’s corporate interests, but is it in the interest of the average web searcher or consumer? As we’ve pointed out in the past, one of the main tests in an antitrust case is whether a company’s behavior distorts the market in a way that penalizes users (and the Federal Trade Commission has even broader latitude when it comes to unfair practices). The more Google expands its ownership of content and services, the harder it will be to defend against those kinds of accusations.