FTC Worries About Google
So, Google has come under scrutiny by the US Federal Trade Commission for possible anti-competitive practices. While I would say the FTC has far larger threats to competition to worry about (the inevitable p-word), it would appear there's sufficient suspicion to take a gander at Google's business practices.
It's important to note that the FTC is not interested in investigating the kind of Google products most of us use. Nobody is locking us into Google Search, GMail, YouTube, Picasa, Google Docs, and so on. In fact, Google makes it very easy to take your data with you to different services, and in doing so, ensures that you are never forced to use anything from Google. Being a web company, Google tends to use open technologies anyways, unlike its competitors.
No, we're fine. People who aren't fine, however, are Google's other customers - the customers that actually make Google money. Google is accused of favouring its own services in search results, non-transparent pricing schemes for advertising, and so on.
