Small Business Voice Highlights Google Concerns, Applauds Sen. Lee

This week, an advocate for small businesses weighed in against Google’s proposal to buy ITA Software. Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, writes in the Salt Lake Tribune that, “[s]mall businesses are particularly vulnerable to nontransparent and unfair practices in Internet search and search advertising.”

Kerrigan lends support to the efforts of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who has called for antitrust oversight hearings on Google. Even though Lee is an “ardent free-market advocate and wary of government intervention,” she highlights his argument that, “[a]ntitrust enforcement is far preferable to the creation of inefficient government regulation and bureaucracy that could hamper innovation.”

Read more in Kerrigan’s op-ed here, particularly about three key areas of concern to small businesses about Google’s dominance in search and search advertising: Unfair advertising costs and competitive practices; unfair “natural” search results; and competitive hindrances to innovation.