Federal Trade Commission

by Nicole Flatow

Whether Google’s business practices “serve consumers” or “threaten competition” will be the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing tomorrow.

The hearing follows the Federal Trade Commission’s announcement in June that it will begin an antitrust probe of Google to determine whether it has “abused its dominance in Web-search advertising.”

Among the concerns the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights hearing will address is the prominence of "Google-affiliated content” in search results. For example, if a user inputs the name of a business into the Google search engine, the results page might feature a Google map or the company’s stock information via Google Finance.

As PCWorld’s Ian Paul explains, “That may be handy for you, but the downside of Google's actions is that sites that used to get traffic from a Google search such as Mapquest, Expedia, or weather and stock information sites, lose traffic. With Google providing the answers users are looking for instead of third-party Websites, the search results for competing products are effectively demoted.”

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who will be the first to testify, told ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour that he is looking forward to the opportunity.

“What we want is sort of a fast hearing on all of these issues,” he said. “I think at the moment this is more of an awareness issue. We have an opportunity to communicate what we’re doing. Senators have an opportunity to communicate their concerns and I think that’s very good.”

Watch the hearing live at 2 p.m. eastern time tomorrow via the Senate Judiciary Committee’s webcast feed or on C-SPAN’s Capitol Hearings page.

In mid-January news reports surfaced that the U.S. Department of Justice was considering an antitrust lawsuit against Internet advertising giant Google over its plan to purchase an online travel information service. Bloomberg reported that DOJ was rankled over Google's planned acquisition of ITA Software, which provides online flight and ticket information.

Citing a report by The Wall Street Journal, PCWorld reports that it appears that Google is now working to save its plan to capture ITA by hashing out an "agreement that could head off a court challenge." According to WSJ, PCWorld reports, the proposal would have "Google agree to form a compulsory licensing that would prevent it from withholding ITA's data from competitors. But the details of such an agreement are complex because of the fast-changing nature of the sector."

PCWorld notes, "ITA is the dominant software player in the online air-travel industry, booking nearly two-thirds of web-based flight bookings, so getting the green light would put Google in a powerful position within yet another online sector."

Pamela Jones, a former member of the Federal Trade Commission told Bloomberg that the planned merger "is uncompetitive and should be challenged. It's a dominant firm expanding in an adjacent market acquiring ITA, and the effect would be to dominate flight search."