Google’s Antitrust Rap Sheet Updated – Part 24 Google Unaccountability Series

Three new Google antitrust developments in just the last few weeks warrant an update to Google’s ominously-growing Antitrust Rap Sheet; see it here.

1. The EU issued a Statement of Objections signaling it has concluded that Google has anti-competitively abused its standards essential patents acquired from Motorola.
2. Canada just launched a broad investigation of Google’s business practices given Google’s ~90% search/search advertising in Canada.
3. The biggest surprise was the U.S. FTC reportedly has started an antitrust investigation of Google-DoubleClick over display ads.

It is telling that Google has been found to have broken antitrust laws in ten different ways. In addition, Google is under antitrust investigation in eleven countries and the EU.

Google continues to claim that it has done nothing wrong and that it is the real victim here of a grand anti-Google conspiracy.

However, the evidence speaks volumes that Google is trying to divert attention from its long track record of being a scofflaw.

• Google’s antitrust rap sheet catalogues 27 offenses over the last six years.
• Google’s privacy rap sheet has over 60 offenses over the last decade;
• Google’s list of property infringements includes over 40 offenses over the last decade;
• Google settled with the U.S. DOJ for $500m to avoid criminal prosecution for knowingly and actively marketing the import of illegal prescription drugs into the U.S over a period of several years; and
• Google is currently being investigated for tax fraud in the UK for claiming that hundreds of UK Google salespeople, who sell in the UK to UK businesses, somehow have virtually no reportable sales in the UK to be taxed, because they are reported to have occurred in Ireland where they are not taxed.

How can one company have so many serious law enforcement problems occurring repeatedly throughout the company in so many jurisdictions?

It is a logical outgrowth of Google’s leadership long fostering a Google culture of unaccountability.

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Google Unaccountability Research Series:

Part 0: Google's Poor and Defiant Settlement Record

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law

Part 2: Top Ten Untrue Google Stories

Part 3: Google's Growing Record of Obstruction of Justice

Part 4: Why FTC's $22.5m Privacy Fine is Faux Accountability

Part 5: Google's Culture of Unaccountability: In Their Own Words

Part 6: Google Mocks the FTC's Ineffectual Privacy & Antitrust Enforcement

Part 7: An FTC Googleopoly Get Out of Jail Free Card?

Part 8: Top Lessons to Learn for Google Antitrust Enforcers

Part 9: Google Mocks EU and FTC in Courting Yahoo Again

Part 10: FTC-Google Antitrust: The Obvious Case of Consumer Harm

Part 11: Why FTC Can't Responsibly End the Google Search Bias Antitrust Investigation

Part 12: Oversight Questions for FTC's Handling of Google Antitrust Probe

Part 13: Courts Not FTC Should Decide on Google Practices (The Hill Op-ed)

Part 14:  Troubling Irregularities Mount in FTC Commissioners' Handling of Google Antitrust Investigation

Part 15: Top Ten Unanswered Questions on FTC-Google Outcome

Part 16: Top Takeaways from FTC’s Google Antitrust Decisions

Part 17: Google’s Global Antitrust Rap Sheet

Part 18: Google’s Privacy Words vs. its Anti-privacy Deeds

Part 19: Google’s Privacy Rap Sheet Updated – Fact-checking Google’s Claim it Works Hard to Get Privacy Right

Part 20: DOJ & FTC Report Cards

Part 21: The Evidence Google Bamboozled EU Competition Authorities

Part 22: EU-Google: Too Powerful to Prosecute? The Problems with Politically Enabling Google

Part 23: Google’s proposed EU Search Bias Remedies: a Satire