Google Extends Commitments to FTC As 2012 Antitrust Agreement Expires

Google agreed to extend the commitments it made to the FTC in 2012 to resolve a years-long antitrust investigation, including continuing to allow third-party search engines to access its AdWords application programming interface. The agreement, which the FTC announced in early 2013, expired Wednesday (see 1301040038). The extension came amid increasing criticism and scrutiny in the U.S. and the EU of major tech sector firms' practices. “We believe that these policies provide continued flexibility for developers and websites, and we will continue them as policies after the commitments expire,” said Google Senior Competition Counsel Michael Lawrence in a letter published Wednesday. The voluntary extension also means Google agreed to continue to abide by a pledge to stop “scraping” its rivals' content. Yelp Vice President-Public Policy Luther Lowe tweeted that the company provided “hard evidence to the FTC” in September “that Google was violating its 2012 promises 500k times per hour.” Google didn't immediately comment. "As soon as we learned of Yelp's claim we took immediate steps to look at and address any issue, as we would have had they come to us directly," a Google spokesman said. "We continue to stand by our commitments to the FTC."