• Reuters, Thursday, May 7, 2009 11:15 AM

Google continues to face government scrutiny as it increases its dominance of the search market. A few legal experts think this is a dangerous thing. Evan Stewart of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP points out that high tech is one of the few areas where the U.S. remains a world leader, but care needs to be taken to ensure that the market remains competitive. "The point is that if we're going to maintain that competitive position, it can't be because we allow one entity to become a complete monopolist," Stewart said.

Among other investigations, the Department of Justice is currently looking at Google's settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers that would allow the search giant to create a massive, online digital library. The settlement gives Google access to so-called orphan works, or those books whose copyright owners are unknown. In another investigation, the FTC is looking at whether the ties between the boards of Apple and Google violate antitrust laws. Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson are on the board of directors of both companies.

Last year, the DOJ was poised to fight Google's deal with Internet rival Yahoo, but the deal was later abandoned. According to Sandy Litvack, who headed that Justice Department team, "neither Microsoft nor IBM was ever the cultural phenomena that Google is." Adds Bert Foer, head of the American Antitrust Institute: "It's not that Google has necessarily done anything wrong. It's not that it's bad or poorly intentioned," said Foer. "It's playing such a large role in the flow of information and has so much free cash to play with and so many creative and aggressive ideas that it presents potential problems regarding... privacy and competition."

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