The state of Texas leads a
group of more than 30 attorneys general preparing an investigation into Google for potential antitrust violations.
Sources tell the Washington Post that state officials plan to
announce the probe September 9, at a news conference.
Texas officials suggest Google may be violating state consumer-protection laws if political bias at Google resulted in the censorship of
conservative viewpoints, according to the report.
The news of a possible investigation comes at a time when Google and others face increased government scrutiny. Reports suggests that in July
the Justice Department announced a broad antitrust probe into Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
"Google's services help people every day, create more choice for consumers, and
support thousands of jobs and small businesses across the country,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email to Search Marketing Daily. “We continue to work constructively with
regulators, including attorneys general, in answering questions about our business and the dynamic technology sector."
There's a lot going on in Silicon Valley. Google has
been identified as one of many companies flooding Twitter and Facebook with ads supported by the Internet Association, a trade group for companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter
and others.
Lobbyists from the trade group are protesting parts of the California Consumer Privacy Act that grants web users the right to see the personal information that
companies collect about them and prevent it from being sold. Members such as Amazon, Etsy, Groupon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google and others want
to rewrite the law before it goes into effect, but they have not been successful, according to
the SF Gate.
Keep the Internet Free launched a page on Facebook and an account on Twitter, sharing videos this summer that encourage people to spare online advertisers
from adhering to some of California's new privacy rules.
The report suggests that one set of ads on Twitter that began running in mid-August has been seen by about 184,000 people -- all
located in Sacramento, according to Twitter's ad archive, reports the SF Gate.