After some back and forth, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt will head to Capitol Hill this week to discuss whether the search giant engages in anti-competitive behavior.
Schmidt will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at 2pm for a hearing titled: "The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?" The Google exec will testify by himself for the first panel, while the witness list for the second panel includes Nextag CEO Jeff Katz and Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman, as well as two DC attorneys.
One of those attorneys is Tom Barnett, who represents Expedia, a member of the FairSearch.org coalition that has opposed Google's acquisition of ITA. FairSearch members also include Foundem, Microsoft, TripAdvisor, Travelocity, Hotwire, Expedia, and others. In a blog post, FairSearch said there will be "no shortage of anticompetitive behavior for the Committee to examine."
Earlier this month, Google quietly launched its Google Travel product, dubbed Flight Search, which offers basic flight information and pricing.
Yelp, meanwhile, has tangled with Google over its Places product, which launched in September 2009. There were later reports that Google was in talks to acquire Yelp, but the deal never happened. In July 2011, Google updated Places to make it easier to access information, upload pictures, and see reviews. Not everyone was pleased with Places, however, particularly rival review sites. As a result, Google removed "review snippets from other web sources" like Yelp from Places. Google later acquired reviews rival Zagat.
Nextag, meanwhile, runs a price comparison tool for small businesses.
At issue with all these companies is whether Google is using its dominance in the market to stop competitive threats. In June, Google said the Federal Trade Commission had started a "review of our business," but did not get specific on what types of documents the agency wanted.
An August Wall Street Journal report said the FTC probe is focused on several areas of interest, including: if Google blocks handset makers that use Android from adding rival services; if Google gives its own services prime placement on its Web sites, like Places, Shopping results, and Google Finance; and if Google takes data compiled by rivals and uses it on its own sites, pushing the original sites lower down in search results.
Across the pond, Google announced in February 2010 that the European Commission had received complaints from three companies about "whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners." Those companies were Foundem, ejustice.fr, and Ciao! from Bing. Microsoft formally joined the EU antitrust complaint against Google in March, accusing the search giant of restricting access to YouTube, content from book publishers, advertiser data, and more.
Getting Schmidt to testify, meanwhile, was no small feat. In June, committee chairman Herb Kohl and ranking member Mike Lee wrote to Schmidt and CEO Larry Page, urging one of them to testify at an upcoming hearing on search competition. Google offered up chief legal officer David Drummond, according to the letter, but Kohl and Lee said they "strongly prefer" to speak to Schmidt or Page because the hearing will "address fundamental questions of business operations rather than merely legal issues."
The two senators reportedly threatened to issue a subpoena to force an appearance. "We much prefer to work this out by agreement rather than needing to resort to more formal procedures," they said. After some back and forth, the subcommittee announced in early July that Schmidt had agreed to testify.
Wednesday's hearing will be webcast on the committee's Web site.
Update: During Wednesday's hearing, Schmidt denied that his company gives its own products search preference over that of its competitors, arguing that it faces major competition from rivals like Microsoft, Yelp, and others.