Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
A newly discovered report from the Federal Trade Commission concluded that Google abused its power by using anti-competitive tactics that inflicted “significant harm” on users and competitors. Google’s conduct “helped it to maintain, preserve and enhance Google’s monopoly position in the markets for search and search advertising” illegally, the report said. The 2012 determination led official to urge an anti-trust lawsuit against Google, but the tech giant avoided litigation by changing some of its policy practices in 2013. In a statement on Thursday, Google General Counsel Kent Walker said, “Speculation about potential consumer harm turned out to be entirely wrong. Since the investigation closed two years ago, the ways people access information online have only increased, giving consumers more choice than ever before.”