We ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's unfair search engine business practices.
Further, we ask that the Google search engine (not other parts of its business) be classified as a public utility and regulated as such. This action is needed because Google is the dominant search engine in the USA and they have created an effective monopoly.
The Sherman Act makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anti-competitive conduct.
Google censoring websites is unfair control of the market. When it applies penalties and/or removal from their search engine index, it is anti-competive conduct. Google has a hidden set of rules that websites are supposed to follow but can't because the rules are not fully disclosed to them. Further, when Google decides a rule is broken they fail to give the website notice, hearing, and appeal rights before they penalize or remove the site from their index. Small business, the engine that drives America, is entitled to a fair playing field.
The Internet was designed to promote open communication. Google's censorship of websites violates this principle.
