The Federal Trade Commission has cleared Google of violating antitrust laws by
promoting its own services in its search results.
Chairman Jon
Leibowitz said on Thursday that the agency found that Google's primary reason for touting its own offerings in the search results was "to improve the user experience," as opposed to harming potential
competitors.
"While Google’s prominent display
of its own vertical search results on its search results page had the effect in some cases of pushing other results 'below the fold,' the evidence suggests that Google’s primary goal in
introducing this content was to quickly answer, and better satisfy, its users’ search queries by providing directly relevant information," the agency added in a four-page statement about Google's search practices.