Texas Attorney General Investigating Google’s Rank System
Google Inc. said Friday that the Texas Attorney General’s office was investigating into the fairness of the company’s search engine rank system.
Google said the probe is the first by a U.S. legal authority into the fairness of its rankings.
The European Commission prompted a similar probe after complaints derived from small websites that felt Google unfairly ranked them.
Google said on its website that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked for information about complaints from a number of companies. Google mentioned websites operated by Foundem, TradeComet and myTriggers as sites that challenged its results.
Google said it looks forward to answering questions from the Texas attorney general.
"We recognize that as Google grows, we’re going to face more questions about how our business works," Deputy General Counsel Don Harrison said in a blog post.
Google pointed out in its statement that attorneys who also work with Microsoft Corp represent two of the companies.
TradeComet CEO Dan Savage told Reuters that Google is trying to "distract from its own antitrust problems by pointing to others and their lawyers."
A myTriggers spokesperson told Reuters that its concern "is just the harm to myTriggers done by Google’s anti-competitive conduct and bullying tactics."
According to a court document filed on Friday, Google settled a federal lawsuit accusing it of privacy violations in connection with its Buzz social networking service.
The court filing said that to settle the lawsuit, Google will have to set aside $8.5 million for attorney fees and donations to organizations focused on Internet privacy.
In addition, "the settlement requires that Google undertake wider public education about the privacy aspects of Buzz," the filing said.
According to Associate General Counsel Mike Yang, the settlement filing comes as Google said it would simplify and update its privacy policies.
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