DOJ Hires Well-Known Litigator in Google Antitrust Ad Probe
The Justice Department has hired Sanford Litvack, who is a former partner at Hogan & Hartson and a former antitrust chief under President Carter, to review evidence in an antitrust probe of Google’s advertising power.
Litvack will help build the case if the department decides to proceed with a challenge to Google’s search advertising deal with Yahoo Inc., the Wall Street Journal reports. He resigned from his law firm last week.
The advertising agreement gives Google the right to sell search and text ads on Yahoo sites in exchange for a share of the revenue. Together Google and Yahoo would control 80 percent of the online search advertising market in the United States, according to story.
It is unclear if an antitrust case would target the ad deal only or would include other aspects of Google’s increasing advertising business.
