Google’s Eric Schmidt says he met with FTC about antitrust probe
“I’m not going to speculate on their motivation,” Schmidt, who was in Washington to attend a meeting of the president’s technology advisers, told POLITICO. “They haven’t said anything yet. They haven’t said what their plan is, what their issues are and so forth.”
Schmidt said he expects it will take some time for the investigation to play out, given the speed at which such probes typically progress. The European Commission opened its own investigation of Google in November.
“I think it is correct to say that they are asking a question, which is perfectly reasonable — it’s their job,” Schmidt said, referring to the FTC.
The FTC and European Commission “have a process that they have to follow” with their investigations, he said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to comment on anything until then.”
Critics accuse the search giant of using its dominance in search and search advertising to promote its own services and hurt rivals.
Schmidt said Google will continue to cooperate with FTC and European antitrust officials as their probes continue.
““What we’ve said is that we’ll collaborate, we’ll give you what you need and that seems to be working,” he said.
But he is not expecting much activity until a Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing in September on Google’s competitive conduct.
“As far as I can tell, the next event is this antitrust hearing,” he said.
Schmidt, who along with CEO Larry Page had refused to testify at that hearing, changed his mind after panel chairman Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) personally reached out to Schmidt.
“He asked,” Schmidt said. “The senator called. He was very nice.”
Schmidt noted that Microsoft and other competitors have been encouraging antitrust agencies to look at Google.
“We know that our competitors, particularly Microsoft, have been quite active, which would put some color on the criticism,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt also commented on the company’s recently launched social networking site, Google+, which some have billed as a competitor to Facebook. Schmidt took issue with that characterization, saying the main goal of Google+ is to take social information culled through the new service to improve its products for consumers.
“Our goal is to do new stuff. And Facebook has done a good job of building a way of managing identity. I think they really have,” he said. “When everybody built [the Internet], it didn’t have a strong notion of identity. … Facebook has done a good job there.”
“Google needs that ability to do a lot of things, so if we know who you are — in our case, through profile pages — and we know your, essentially, social network, relationship graph … because you’ve given us that information, we can make our products better,” he continued. “So that’s the genesis of it.”
Google’s earnings roared past Wall Street estimates Thursday. Based on the strong figures Google posted, the company’s business strategy is serving them well, said Schmidt.
“We don’t operate as a company based on competitors,” said Schmidt. “We try actually to make new things, which is working, which is going well.”
