The US Federal Trade Commission has been looking into whether or not Google's search business is in fact in violation of its antitrust rules for some time. Now, a new rumor claims that Google is willing to change some of its search practices in order to avoid a fine from the FTC.
Politico reports, via unnamed sources, that the changes could be publicly announced as soon as this week. These adjustments could include cutting down on the number of restaurant and travel reviews from other websites on Google's search results, along with allowing search ad campaigns to be quickly ported to other search engines. Neither Google nor the FTC have commented on these reports.
Politico also claims, again via unnamed sources, that Google and the FTC could settle on another issue before the end of this year. This one concerns the patents that Google acquired from Motorola Mobility. The report claims that Google's settlement will include their agreement to not use certain key patents they bought from Motorola to block the sale of products from other companies that are using those patents.
Google has already paid the FTC a $22.5 million fine this year due to Google putting an advertising tracking cookie on PCs that used Apple's Safari web browser, even if the Safari users had set up the browser to disable such ad tracking.
Source: Politico | Image via Google
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