Obama's FTC Pick Has Google-Defense History

Wrote paper highlighting issues with effect of erroneous antitrust intervention on high-tech innovation and economic growth

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/12/2012 9:51:21 AM

The Obama Administration's choice for Republican commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission should sit well with Google, whose search and ad practices have been under scrutiny by the FTC.

Joshua Wright, a George Mason University professor whose nomination was sent to the Senate on Tuesday for confirmation, was co-author of a paper in 2011, "Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Case Against Google."

In the paper, Wright and his co-author argue that "much has changed in the monopolization law landscape since the watershed Microsoft decision over a decade ago," and that "contemporary monopolization enforcement in the US is focused substantially on innovative companies in high-tech industries, creating substantial concerns that antitrust error in the form of successful interventions against pro-competitive innovations and business practices will hinder economic growth."

Google has been under antitrust scrutiny for its dominance in search and allegations it favors its own content, something Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has denied. He has also suggested in a Hill hearing that Google was a different company from the one a decade ago that drew the government's attention -- he did not say 'Microsoft," but did not have to. He said Google was a different company and should be treated as such.