After investigating Google for 20 months, the Federal Trade Commission today definitively endorsed the concept that search engine operators have the discretion to decide how to display search results. The FTC officially cleared Google of engaging in unfair competition by prominently displaying results for its services while pushing other companies' links to the bottom of the results page. The agency accepted Google's argument that it sometimes returns its own results prominently in order to give consumers the information they are looking for.

Like countless other small business owners, Christopher Dietz, a contractor in Washington, D.C., wasn't happy to see what one of his clients posted about him online on Yelp and Angie's List. Unlike many on the receiving end of bad publicity, Dietz responded by filing a defamation lawsuit against the reviewer, Jane Perez of Fairfax County, Virginia. In her reviews, she complained about Aietz's work, and also implied that someone from his company stole jewelry from her home. Last month, Judge Thomas Fortkort in Fairfax Couty held a preliminary hearing about whether to order the posts removed. At the conclusion, he …