AGs meet to discuss antitrust probe

New York/Washington, Nov. 12: State attorneys general are meeting on Monday in Colorado to discuss their probe into whether Google’s business practices break antitrust law, according to two sources knowledgeable about the meeting.

Perhaps about a dozen states were expected to send representatives to the meeting, one of the sources said.

The gathering was expected to be similar to one held in New York in October, where state and federal enforcers from the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission discussed their probe of Facebook.

The probe of Google, a unit of Alphabet, is being led by the Texas attorney general’s office. That office did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesman for the Colorado attorney general’s office declined comment.

Google had no comment about the meeting in Colorado but pointed to a blog post from September in which an executive, Kent Walker, said that the company has “always worked constructively with regulators and will continue to do so.”

Texas sent the search and advertising giant a subpoena on Sept. 9 asking for information about its online digital advertising business, which generates most of Google’s revenue and where Google is a dominant player. Google faces two other major inquiries — a US Justice Department investigation and a probe by the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee - both of which have broad reviews of the big internet companies underway.