Things Heat Up Between the FTC & Google

Things are getting heavy enough in the FTC antitrust investigation regarding Google's manipulation of the search results to promote their own products that we felt the need to bring it to your attention.

The New York Times reported that the commission staff is recommending that the government move forward with a lawsuit and a decision is expected to be made before the end of 2012.

If the recommendation does come through then the FTC Commissioners would put it to a vote. Only three out of the five commissioners would have to approve it for a lawsuit to move forward and Reuters is reporting that they may already have four convinced that Google is misbehaving enough to push it through.

Beth Wilkinson, a Washington Attorney, was hired in April by the FTC to lead the investigation and that added to speculation that a lawsuit may be in Google's future.