back to article US states vow to fight Google after the FTC meekly rolls over

The USA may have backed down before the Chocolate Factory, but Mississippi’s Attorney General Jim Hood says that an anti-trust investigation into Google is in the pipeline. Hood, who is also the president of the US National Association of Attorneys General, told legal and policy newsletter MLex: I think that anti-trust, that …

  1. Mark 85
    Alert

    I hope Mr. Hood is careful....

    I suspect that there's a bad accident with his name on it waiting for him if he gets close to the truth. Possibly involving a driverless car?

    1. Tom 13
      Black Helicopters

      Re: I hope Mr. Hood is careful....

      Wrong icon. This is the correct one ------->

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Keep in mind that the states were also the real instigators of various investigations into misrepresentation in the financial industry, and even the lawsuits that outed deception in the cigarette industry came from the states.

    Wake up, Feds!!

    1. silent_count

      At a federal level, agencies and their directors can be 'gotten to', one way or another. Thankfully the US has so many states that companies can't buy or bully everyone, though I doubt it's for lack of trying.

    2. Olius

      "Wake up, Feds!!"

      Wake up Feeple!!, Shirley?

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Interesting

    A politician who is not yet bought up by Corporate America and actually has the balls to stand up to the money man.

    Is this a sign that Google is nearing the end of its public welcome ? Or a sign that Google is going to start hiring ex-military types ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Interesting

      Is this a sign that Google is nearing the end of its public welcome ? Or a sign that Google is going to start hiring ex-military types ?

      I just keep thinking it's a sign he thinks he's Jim Garrison.

      But I don't think he is.

  4. Falmari Silver badge

    If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

    Why can't Google just let Hood investigate them, after all “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”

    1. Tom 13

      Re: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

      I thought this one was actually:

      "You have no privacy. Deal with it."

  5. knightred

    love the definitions in the subpoena

    Reading that subpoena, I enjoyed how they define "RECORDS", especially having microfiche and microfilm next to computer disks, laser disks and recordings... I also forgot that a corporation is a "person" so they have to define "PERSON" to include "association of persons".

    It's amazing to think that a programmer given a document like this would build exactly what you asked.

    A lawyer given this document would give you nothing at all, pointing out that they all their their records are on clay tablets and can only be viewed by a cabal of magician/scholars during a lunar eclipse so are not required to produce and, to cap it off, counter sue for violations of the Protection of Religious Institutions of the Correct Kinds act of ought 8.

  6. dan1980
    Angel

    Who's afraid of the dark?

    Everything else aside - who's been bought by whom - there are certain terms and phrases that, when used by politicians, instantly drop their credibility to near-zero. "Dark web" is one such term.

    The things terms like this have in common is that they are evocative and encompass a whole slew of (generally) negative connotations despite not really meaning anything specific and neatly obscuring any nuance.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Clearly...

    ...the FTC and FCC have been bought by big business. How else can you explain a complete lack of enforcement of law by these agencies when presented with clear cases of consumer fraud?

  8. Daggerchild Silver badge

    In case anyone cares...

    .. this injunction he's appealling is explicitely temporary, and expires in a couple of months anyway..

  9. cantankerous swineherd

    remember schneiderman:

    https://seniorsforademocraticsociety.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/naked-capitalism-on-the-fraud-of-mortgage-fraud-investigation/

  10. PAW

    judged by the company you keep

    Mississippi public officials are ranked by reporters to be 7th most corrupt in the US. Mississippi ranks 2nd in convictions of public officials per capita (fivethirtyeight.com). If there's specific evidence that the Miss. Attorney General is being bribed by MPAA, I'm likely to consider it possible. In what way have the citizens of Mississippi been financially damaged by Google that their AG would get involved to this degree? In the case of Microsoft, damage was easy to answer - the cost of a Windows license added to a pc. That's what the states sued for.

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