US antitrust investigation agency invites Oracle to help investigate violations in Google’s advertising business

The US Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice have already started anti-monopoly investigations against large technology giants such as Google. Such antitrust investigations usually last for years or even longer, during which the antitrust investigation agency invites the industry and other participants to assist in the investigation. This time, the US anti-monopoly investigation agency actually invited Oracle to participate in the investigation, after Oracle’s authorization for Android and Google litigation continued for a long time.

Google previously used Oracle’s proprietary Java API technology in Android, and Oracle believes Google’s commercial practices have violated copyright agreements. However, Google does not believe that it has infringement and therefore refuses to pay royalties to Oracle. For this reason, Oracle sued Google. At the beginning of the year, many local courts in the United States ruled that Google did not have infringements and did not need to pay.

It must be said that the US anti-monopoly investigation agency is also full of enthusiasm for Google because Oracle knows more about the advertising business of Google and its affiliates. Why does Oracle know about Google’s advertising business? Because in the Android infringement lawsuit that lasted for many years, Google requested the court to disclose advertising business to Oracle. For example, Google’s profit by bundling Google search and series software on Android is $22 billion. These were originally confidential data that would not be made public. At the time, after Oracle announced the above revenue data, Google also protested to the court. Google believes that the data Oracle can see but should not directly disclose the data. It is also the case that the US antitrust investigation agency invited Oracle to assist in the investigation and wanted to find out about Google’s advertising business.

Oracle officially confirmed that it had received a request for assistance from the US antitrust investigation agency. Oracle has already had initial communication with the US Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, but Oracle has not disclosed more specific information.

Source: Reuters