Eric Schmitt, attorney general of Missouri, was clear in a press conference in front of the headquarters of the United States Supreme Court. The analysis that began on the power of Google on the Internet, he said, “is an unprecedented investigation.” And it doesn’t seem like an exaggeration.

This attorney general is one of fifty US attorney generals investigating possible anti-competitive conduct of Google. A scrutiny of the activity of the technology giant that, in an initial phase, will focus on discerning whether the company gives priority to the search results of its search engine to companies that pay to advertise.

If true, this could be excluding competitors from paying companies, especially leaving small businesses on the sidelines, while free market is being harmed from the point of view of consumers, Schmitt said. Something that would violate the antitrust laws of the United States.

“Google dominates all aspects of advertising and internet searches”

The attorney general of the state of Texas, Ken Paxton, who leads the investigation, said that the investigation would focus mainly on the advertising and search businesses, although statements before prosecutors suggested that an expansion of Google’s audit of other issues such as user data protection.

Paxton also went further and said during the press conference along with other colleagues drivers of research that Google “dominates all aspects of advertising and Internet search, ” according The Washington Post. There are no deadlines for the duration of the investigations, but they are expected to be long.

From the Open Markets Institute, an organization that promotes greater awareness of the political and economic dangers of monopolization through journalism, they applauded the announcement and assured that they had not seen an initiative as important as this one against a technological giant from which it affected Microsoft in 1998. “today’s announcement marks the beginning of a new era” , they have secured.

Google, through Kent Walker, legal director of the company, said the investigation is not new. “We have answered many questions on these issues for many years, both in the United States and abroad, in many aspects of our business, so this is not new to us,” they say in an email sent to the media. “The DOJ [Department of Justice of the United States] has asked us to provide information on these previous investigations, and we expect state attorneys general to ask similar questions. We have always worked constructively with regulators and will continue to do so.”