FTC

The following is a roundup of some recent developments in antitrust news:

• The Federal Trade Commission plans to launch a formal investigation into whether Google Inc. has “abused its dominance in Web-search advertising,” a probe that some policy watchers say could be a watershed moment for antitrust policy, The Wall Street Journal reports. While Google has been the subject of several antitrust investigations, prior investigations have focused on mergers and acquisitions, as opposed to the search advertising business, which is Google’s biggest money-maker, according to WSJ. In a blog post, Google Fellow Amit Singhal responds to the FTC’s announced investigation by articulating Google’s core principles, which he says will enable the company to “stand up to scrutiny.”  And in a recent column in Main Justice, TechFreedom Senior Adjunct Fellow Geoffrey Manne blasts the FTC’s plan to investigate Google for “unfair methods of competition” under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which, he argues, does not apply to claims that Google harms competitors rather than consumers.

• AT&T’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile is sparking continued questions about the reason for the merger, with the FTC investigating AT&T’s claim that it needs more “wireless spectrum” to avoid dropped calls and satisfy the need for data access, and a Department of Justice probe continuing, NPR reports. Sprint and other opponents of the deal allege AT&T has more licensed spectrum than any other carrier in the country, and that much of it goes unused, but some policy experts say AT&T is just doing long-range planning. Sprint also filed an FCC petition against AT&T last month.

• Intel Corp., Apple and several other large companies have received approval from the Department of Justice to bid on a “trove of high-tech patents” from the now-bankrupt telecommunications gear-maker Nortel Networks Corp.,The Wall Street Journal reports.