The Department of Justice has asked for more information about the pending merger of Google and Motorola Mobility, the search giant revealed Wednesday.
"Today we received what is called a 'second request,' which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal," Dennis Woodside, a Google senior vice president, wrote in a blog post. "This is pretty routine; we've gotten these kind of requests before," he said, pointing to the DOJ's inquiry into Google's purchase of ITA.
The request means Google will not be closing the deal as quickly as it might like, but "we're confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes," Woodside said, acknowledging that "close scrutiny is part of the process."
In mid-August, Google surprised tech enthusiasts by announcing plans to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Motorola has been a purely Android shop for some time, but the deal was primarily viewed as a way for Google to gets its hand on some much-needed patents; Motorola has at least 17,000.
There were concerns, however, about how the deal might affect other Android partners. According to Google's Andy Rubin, the major Android players were "very enthusiastic" about the deal and the rather canned responses posted on Google's Web site from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, and LG said all four companies "welcome" the news. Many in the analyst and tech community, however, greeted that sentiment with a nice, big, "Yeah right."
Trouble is, Motorola rivals like Samsung and HTC have benefited greatly from selling Android devices, and many simply can't afford to drop the platform, even if the Google-Moto deal doesn't sit well with them. For its part, Google insisted that Motorola will continue as a separate company and that Android will remain an open platform.
For more, see Google Acquires Motorola Mobility: What You Need to Know.