Apparently Google's Lawyers Were Prepped For Google/Apple Antitrust Inquiry

from the just-look-at-our-website dept

With the (not particularly surprising) news coming out that the FTC was looking at the relationship between Apple and Google (specifically the ties between the Board of Directors of both companies), John Paczkowski noticed that Google's outside law firm (full disclosure: it's our outside law firm as well, though it's a big, big law firm), Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati had not only already prepared a presentation on the issue but had posted it to its website. Soon after noticing it, WSGR pulled down the presentation. So Paczkowski pointed to the Google cache of it... only to see that disappear quickly as well. Amusingly, Danny Sullivan noted that it's still available in Microsoft's cache. Either way, it seems like Google should be quite prepared for the issue, though Eric Schmidt's initial responses to questions about it don't seem very reassuring. You would think that he would have thought through a slightly more nuanced answer than saying that he hadn't even considered leaving Apple's board. Either way, it seems pretty clear that Google is going to spend an awful lot of time in the antitrust spotlight -- justified or not -- over the next few years, and the company better get used to it.

Filed Under: antitrust, ftc
Companies: apple, ftc, google, wilson sonsini