After fobbing off a Senate Judiciary subcommittee by telling its leaders that it’s more appropriate for company lawyers to testify, Google has finally agreed to make its former chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt available for a hearing in September about online competition.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, made the announcement Friday afternoon.
“We look forward to Eric Schmidt’s participation at our antitrust subcommittee hearing in September,” Kohl said in a statement. “This will allow us to have a truly informational and thorough public hearing.”
The Federal Trade Commission recently launched a widely-anticipated antitrust investigation into Google’s business practices as complaints about the company from competitors mounted.
European competition authorities have already launched their own investigation.
Several internet companies, as well as Microsoft, have been bringing their complaints to the FTC and staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee over the past few months, complaining about the way Google ranks search results.
One of the major complaints is that Google has changed its business model and is favoring its own services over competitors’.
“The allegation is that Google has changed its business plan, and has gone into these businesses in competition with the people that they would otherwise send business,” said attorney Gary Reback, who is representing some of the specialized search engines companies which have filed complaints with the FTC.
Reback is best known for his tireless efforts to prod the federal government into its epic antitrust fight against Microsoft in the 1990s.
To some extent it appears that he’s reprising his role, this time against Google.
Google in turn has responded to the growing sentiment against it in DC by hiring a flotilla of lobbyists, as well as Jeff Blattner, the former Justice Department attorney who oversaw the government’s antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in the 1990s.
The company also responded to the publicity by launching a web site that explains how its services work, and how they fit in the competitive landscape.
