Full FTC Report Reveals More of Google's Dirty Tricks Against TripAdvisor and Others

Internal emails and the findings of a Federal Trade Commission staff report on its antitrust investigation of Google show how Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Amazon resisted Google's "unlawful" practice of stealing their reviews and other content. The August 2012 FTC bureau of competition staff report, obtained by the Wall Street Journal and embedded below, also details that Google Local executives wanted Google to acquire Yelp but were "rebuffed" by Google higher-ups, and an email from from Eric Schmidt, seemingly when he was still Google CEO, has him agreeing to spend a suggested $100 million or so to build up Google Local after a deal for Yelp's content fell through. Any discussions around Google acquiring Yelp apparently took place before Google ultimately decided to acquire Zagat and Frommer's digital assets in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The Back Story In late 2006, Google decided it needed reviews, addresses, photos, and operating hours of local businesses to win in local search over rivals and, after a couple of years of trying, Google really wasn't making much progress in building up its user review database. Google eventually revamped Google Maps and Google Local to attract reviews, and seeded them with user reviews from Yelp and TripAdvisor, among others, without attribution or permission, the FTC report states. Google knew that Yelp and TripAdvisor would be angry about Google launching a competitive product using their reviews as a foundation, and Yelp even eliminated a data feed to Google, the report states, but