Bloomberg: Sen. Blumenthal Calls for Hearings on Google

In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) voiced strong support for a Senate hearing to examine antitrust concerns about Google, saying: “The recent acquisition by Google of e-commerce sites in a broad array of businesses raises some serious antitrust issues.”

The report added: “Any probe of Google should look at whether the company skews search results to rank its services higher than those of competitors, Blumenthal said. “The very powerful potential exists for the steering of consumers to its sites without even the knowledge of the consumers themselves,” he said.

Add Sen. Blumenthal to a growing list of elected officials expressing concerns with Google’s anticompetitive behavior, including: Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), Chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, who announced last week that examining the anticompetitive effects of Google’s dominance and marketplace behavior would be among the committee’s top priorities; Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), ranking member on the Antitrust Subcommittee; Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee; Reps. Howard Coble (R-NC), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Aviation Subcommittee, and Thomas Petri (R-WI), Chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee; Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who chairs the antitrust committee of the National Association of Attorneys General; and Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott, who has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Google.

In addition, the American Antitrust Institute, Consumers Union’s Bill McGee, and the Consumer Travel Alliance’s Charlie Leocha have all expressed serious concerns with the potential harm to consumers that might result from Google’s takeover of ITA Software.