Chairwoman Edith Ramirez Federal Trade Commission 600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20580

Dear Madam Chairperson:

January 29, 2016

In January 2013, the Federal Trade Commission terminated its investigation ofGoogle's alleged manipulation of its search results, a practice known as "search bias." Industry participants and consumer advocates complained that Google manipulated its search results to favor its own services and products and those of its advertisers, while demoting or excluding rival results that may be more relevant to consumer searches. The Commission conducted its investigation alongside several state attorneys general, though attorneys general were not involved in the settlement discussions.

When consumers perform searches using Google's search engine, Google, using a proprietary algorithm, searches its index of the Internet and assembles and provides ranked websites relevant to the users search terms- so called "organic" search results. Together with the search results, Google provides links to its own products and services, such as price results for shopping and reviews of local businesses. Google was alleged to have manipulated its algorithms in order to unfairly promote its own proprietary content while, at the same time, demoting competing websites.

The Commission's investigation found that Google had a dominant position in search and search advertising, and was manipulating its search page to favor its own results and demote rivals, thus limiting consumer choices. The Commission, however, closed its investigation finding that despite the negative impact on competition, the effect of Google's design changes "improve the quality of its search results." However, consumer advocates, market participants and international regulators have asserted that this conclusion should be revisited.

Since January 2013, many state attorneys general have continued to monitor this issue with great interest. General Racine and I write today to direct your attention to some developments that may be of interest to the Commission on this issue.

Most notably, significant international regulatory action is taking place. Since the conclusion of the FTC's investigation, regulators around the world have continued to investigate Google. In fact, the European Commission recently filed formal antitrust charges against Google for

allegedly manipulating its search results. The European Competition Commissioner expressed concerns that users do not necessarily see the most relevant results in response to queries due to search result manipulation by Google. The European Commission found evidence that Google was engaging in conduct to divert traffic from competing services. The European Commission relied on empirical studies and evidence to conclude that Google is harming consumers and the competitive process.

Similarly, the Competition Commission of India ("CCI") has issued its own complaint against Google. The CCI found Google liable for promoting its own proprietary content over content that would be most relevant to the user and ofbiasing search results for sponsored links. Other jurisdictions, including Canada and Brazil, maintain active investigations.

In addition to the new regulatory actions, last year, researchers at the Columbia Law School, Harvard Business School and Yelp's Science Data Team published a research paper entitled "Does Google Content Degrade Google Search? Experimental Evidence," which reexamined whether Google has been skewing search results and the impact this practice has on consumers. The authors of the study, which included former FTC Chief Technologist Tim Wu and Harvard Professor Michael Luca, found that search bias by Google does, in fact, harm consumers. According to the study, users were significantly less likely to actually click through the search results in an organic search when the results were manipulated by Google. According to the study's authors:

The easy and widely disseminated argument that Google's universal search always serves users and merchants is demonstrably false. In the largest category of search (local intent­based), Google appears to be strategically deploying universal search in a way that degrades the product so as to slow and exclude challengers to its dominant search paradigm.

See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract id=2667143. The paper has been criticized by Google because it was underwritten by Yelp, a local search engine company that provides consumer generated reviews of businesses and services. However, we believe additional investigation may confirm what this research shows, which is that search manipulation by Google has the following negative impacts on consumers: a) users may abandon their searches if they do not find what they are looking for, leading to unconsummated online and offline transactions; b) users take longer to find the information they need, suffering greater search costs in the process and making less informed decisions; and c) users patronize businesses or service providers that may not have been their first choice, thus impacting businesses' ability to compete for customers.

As attorneys general, we are always pleased to work with the FTC to protect consumers, to ensure fair competition and to work cooperatively to address issues that impact our economy. We write today to thank you for your attention to so many issues facing American consumers. The issue of local search result fairness is an evolving issue in a fast paced digital economy. We encourage the Commission to consider new information and developments that have become available both domestically and internationally since closing its Google

investigation. Upon doing so, the Commission may determine that its investigation should be revisited. Of course, we thank you for your consideration of this letter and this significant consumer Issue.

Sean eyes Attorney General for the State of Utah

Karl Racine Attorney General for the District of Columbia