Apple Subpoenaed in Google Antitrust Probe

Apple has reportedly been subpoenaed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in its antitrust probe of Google, reports Bloomberg. The commission is said to be seeking information on how Apple incorporates Google's search engine into the iPhone and iPad.

The agency's request for documents includes the agreements that made Google the preferred search engine on Apple's mobile devices, said the people, who weren't authorized to speak publicly and declined to be identified. Google rivals such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) have criticized these agreements as anticompetitive.

The FTC wants to know whether Google is abusing its dominance in Internet search to boost mobile phone advertising dollars, says Allen Grunes, an antitrust lawyer at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. "As mobile search gets more widespread, the default setting becomes more significant," said Grunes.


Recently it was reported that Google pays Apple $1 billion per year to be the default search engine on Safari.

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