By Nicolas
Google and Facebook are in the crosshairs of potential US antitrust probes that could disrupt their businesses or even break them apart — but it’s not the first time they have faced heat from the feds.
Silicon Valley-based Google dodged the threat of a federal inquiry into its Android mobile operating system in 2013, while Facebook a year earlier sidestepped a potential clampdown on its merger with Instagram — despite an internal document showing the merger was about killing a competitor, sources told The Post.
The dodges could come back to haunt the tech giants as regulators, and the House Judiciary Committee, probe them for anti-competitive behavior, according to sources familiar with past probes.
Google, for example, walked away from a yearlong Federal Trade Commission investigation in 2013 by agreeing to allow advertisers to display ads on sites that compete with it at the same time they ran ads on Google’s platform.
The end of the probe, which some FTC insiders characterized as a wrist slap by the Obama administration, irked staffers eager to delve into the search giant’s Android mobile operating system, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said.
Specifically, staffers wanted to know more about Google requiring third-party phone makers to bundle its apps with the company’s Android operating system — to the exclusion of rival apps, the sources said.
The FTC‘s failure to investigate Android remains “one piece of unfinished business” the Justice Department could now pick up, one source said.
The DOJ is looking into investigating both Google parent Alphabet, run by Google co-founder Larry Page, and Apple for potential anti-competitive practices. The FTC now has jurisdiction over Facebook and Amazon.
In July, the European Commission slapped Google with a $4.9 billion fine for pitching its Android operating system for phones as “open” while placing restrictions on phone makers to ensure its internet browser, Google Chrome, was the only browser pre-installed on Android phones.
If the DOJ finds Google violated US antitrust laws, it would likely do more than the EC and demand that the company change its business practices, a former DOJ antitrust official told The Post.
Although Apple also bundles apps on its phones, it doesn’t advertise its operating system as “open,” the DOJ official said.
Separately, an FTC probe of Facebook is likely to raise a damning document the agency collected in 2012, when Facebook was gearing up to buy Instagram. As The Post previously reported, the document showed a high-ranking Facebook executive said the reason it was buying Instagram was to destroy a competitor.
Since Facebook bought Instagram, the photo app has copied many of rival Snapchat’s features, including face filters and stories.
“Facebook’s success in going after Snap’s sweet spot was a gut punch blow to Snap,” analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities told to us.
