Google is under attack, but stays calm in the midst of multiple allegations against their Web search services and influence over Android. The Federal Trade Commission along with several state attorneys general have been pushing forward with an investigation of Google’s control over Android’s operating system. Canalys, a company that provides research data, has stated that Android currently leads close to half of new smartphones shipped worldwide in the second quarter of this year.

After serving Google with several extensive subpoenas, the FTC continues to investigate whether the report that Google is preventing Android manufacturers from using other competitor services, is true. Google denies all allegations against them, assuring that none of their practices are unfair or illegal. Google believes that the recent increase in antitrust investigations has been a result of rival competitors who have been affected by Google’s aggressive push toward new business sectors.

In a private lawsuit against Google, the Boston-based company Skyhook Wireless Inc. has tried to prove Google otherwise. Skyhook claimed that Google was using its large market share to pressure smartphone manufacturers to drop Skyhook’s location-sensing technology in exchange for Google’s own competing service. Google replied stating that Skyhook’s allegations were unsupported.

Yelp is among other business-review sites that also agree to disagree with Google’s impartial statement, accusing Google of stealing content from their sites and posting it in the Google’s “Places” service. But so far the FTC has not proven Google guilty, and will not for a while since they are just starting an extensive investigation process that can last up to a year or longer. With several civil subpoenas being readied to send out to other parties in request of evidence against Google, the FTC is one step closer to solving the Google problem.

Last week, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) announced a new set of rules to govern bloggers with a connection to any company selling a product they are writing about. So, how far will the government go?  Right now, it’s unclear, but the guidelines could extend to regulate posts people make on Facebook and other social networking sites.

So what does this mean for our 1st amendment rights?
•    The government will have the ability to further dictate the parameters of individual communication via the Internet.
•    Several new questions arise about what exactly constitutes blogola and disclosure. (For those unblog-savvy types, “blogola” refers to posts made by bloggers who have been given some sort of incentive to post about a product.)  Should the disclosure be written in the post or can it be in the bloggers “about me” page? Is blogola really that different than traditional forms of advertisement and promotion?

However, here at IMI, we do believe that there are two sides to every story:

•    Libel is illegal. Defamation is illegal. Do they still happen frequently?  Yes.  Do they happen on the Web?  Way too often, but it’s not rigorously regulated online at the moment.  These new regulations will hold people responsible for their blog posts, which is a logical extension of current laws surrounding these concepts.
•    Has anyone ever posted anything nasty about you or someone you know on ripoffreport.com, juicycampus.com, etc.?  These sites continue to pop up every day, constantly grow in usage and exposure, and have significantly injured the reputations and careers of many.

So, what’s fair?  What do YOU think?  We’re interested, let us know…