The attorney general of the US state of Texas has opened an inquiry into whether Internet giant Google manipulates search results.

Google disclosed the antitrust probe in a blog post late Friday following a report by technology website SearchEngineLand.com on the investigation by the Texas authorities.

"We recognize that as Google grows, we're going to face more questions about how our business works," Google's deputy general counsel Don Harrison said.

"As Search Engine Land first reported, we've recently been approached by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office, which is conducting an antitrust review of Google," Harrison said.

"We look forward to answering their questions because we're confident that Google operates in the best interests of our users," he said.

According to Search Engine Land, Abbott has been investigating since July whether Google is "manipulating its paid and editorial results in a way that violates antitrust laws."

The probe stems from complaints by three rival search companies -- Foundem, a British price comparison site; New York-based SourceTool, a website run by parent company TradeComet; and Ohio-based myTriggers.

"They claim that Google's algorithms demote their site because they are a direct competitor to our search engine," Harrison said. "The reality is that we don't discriminate against competitors."

He said that "given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it's unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking."

European regulators opened an informal investigation in February into similar allegations from three Web companies including Foundem.

Harrison suggested Google rival Microsoft was behind the various complaints.

He said Foundem was backed by an organization funded largely by Microsoft and that both TradeComet and myTriggers were represented by Microsoft antitrust attorneys.

The Google counsel also noted that a federal judge earlier this year dismissed a private antitrust lawsuit against Google filed by TradeComet.

Microsoft and Yahoo! teamed up last year in a bid to rival Google in search but have made only slight inroads against the Mountain View, California-based company which controls around 65 percent of the US search market.

earlier related report
Google to pay 8.5 million dollars to settle Buzz case
San Francisco (AFP) Sept 3, 2010 - Google has agreed to pay 8.5 million dollars (US) to settle a privacy lawsuit over a Buzz social networking tool added to free email service Gmail in February, according to court documents.

Legal paperwork made available online Friday detailed the proposed settlement, which awaits approval by the federal court judge in San Francisco presiding over the case.

Lawyers that filed the class-action suit staked out 30 percent of the settlement money and the seven named plaintiffs were to get no more than 2,500 dollars each, according to court documents.

The rest of the money, which Google is to deposit in a fund, was earmarked for organizations devoted to Internet privacy policy or education.

The settlement also called on the California-based Internet giant to do more to educate people about privacy at Buzz.

Facing a slew of privacy complaints in the wake of the Buzz launch, Google has made changes to the new social networking tool.

"Google has made changes to the Google Buzz user interface that clarify Google Buzz's operation and users' options regarding Google Buzz," the settlement maintained.

Among the concerns aired in technology blogs and elsewhere was that Google Buzz was taking a user's Gmail contacts and automatically adding them to their public Buzz social network.

Gmail users now have to create a Google Buzz public profile and can view, edit or hide lists of people in their online circles.

Google also gave users the ability to block anyone following their account.

Buzz allows Gmail users to get updates about what friends are doing online and offers ways to share video, photos and other digitized snippets.

Buzz has been described by some technology analysts as a direct challenge by Google to social networking stars Facebook and Twitter.

The court filing came as Google updated its privacy policy.

"We're simplifying and updating Google's privacy policies," Google associate general counsel Mike Yang said Friday in a blog post.

"To be clear, we aren't changing any of our privacy practices; we want to make our policies more transparent and understandable."

On Thursday, a nonprofit consumer group that has been hounding Google about privacy released a satirical video cartoon featuring the Internet firm's chief giving away ice cream to snoop on children.

Google noted that information about its privacy tools can be found online at google.com/privacy.