Lawmaker Urges FTC To Check Google's Ad Practices

U-S Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate whether Google's search and digital advertising practices are stifling the marketplace.

Hatch sent a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons expressing concern about reports in recent years ranging from Google restricting competing advertising services to collecting data from users' Gmail inbox contents.

"Needless to say, I found these reports disquieting," Hatch wrote. "Although these reports concern different aspects of Google's business, many relate to the company's dominant position in search and accumulating vast amounts of personal data."

The letter comes at a time when critics of Google's market power are gaining momentum, helped along by growing concerns over data privacy. But most of the lawmakers echoing those concerns have been Democrats and Hatch, the longest-serving member of the Senate, may be the highest-profile Republican to call for the government to take antitrust action against Google.

"We take all correspondence from members of Congress very seriously," FTC spokesman Peter Kaplan said in an email to The Hill. "However, we have no comment beyond that."