Last month, the FCC found that AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile it would result in stifled competition and potentially kill hundreds of jobs”, and it would ultimately be harmful to consumers.

Following the FCC’s move to block the merger, AT&T and T-Mobile formally withdrew their application to the FCC last month, but AT&T isn’t quite ready to give up just yet. They’re now taking the case to the Department of Justice, but it hasn’t gotten off to a particularly well start.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in Washington recently scheduled a hearing on December 15 to determine whether or not to grant a stay on AT&T’s antitrust trial with the Department of Justice, or dismiss it entirely. Needles to say, neither option is great news for AT&T.

“We don’t have any confidence that we are spending all this time and effort and the taxpayers’ money and that we’re not being spun,” Huvelle said. “The landscape has changed,” she said, questioning whether or not the deal would even be able to be carried out before the contractual deadline.

Despite the latest setback, AT&T’s lawyers are holding their ground, demanding that they get their “day in court.” AT&T lawyers insist that if they’re able to win over the Department of Justice, there’s a chance that the FCC will allow the merger to continue.

Source: Bloomberg

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AT&T, T-Mobile Merger: Judge considering shutting down antitrust trial is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a press conference announcement today in New Orleans U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating BP for any criminal and civil wrongdoing when it comes to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The investigation is looking for any violations of the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. If the company is found to be guilty of any of those acts it could be held liable for cleanup efforts and for reimbursement to the government for any costs it may incur as a result of the spill.

The investigation comes after a growing number of critics have demanded more intense government involvement.  Scott West, the former special agent-in-charge at the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, has been reminding anyone who will listen of BP’s prior convictions, one in connection with a March 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 employees and injured 170 others and two criminal misdemeanor convictions for a pair of oil spills in Alaska in March and August 2006, relating to corroded pipelines that BP had failed to maintain. “BP is a convicted serial environmental criminal,” West recently toldtruthout.org. “So, where are the criminal investigators? The well head is a crime scene and yet the potential criminals are in charge of that crime scene. Have we learned nothing from this company’s past behavior?”

Source: FastCompany

BP under investigation by Justice Department over oil spill is a post from: The Inquisitr

If there is one powerhouse on the web today it has to be Google. Sure the little upstarts like Facebook and Twitter might be grabbing all the headlines but unfortunately Google is getting a different kind of attention, that it really doesn’t want. Mr. Dana Wagner, Google’s “senior competition counsel”, would like to have everyone believe that the company is part of an industry where disruption is only a mouse click away but not everyone is falling for that line.

Over the past little while Google has found itself under the ever increasing watchful eye of the Department of Justice. Following up on the derailment of a Google – Yahoo deal the company is facing three new antitrust investigations by the government. In an effort to soft-pedal Google’s influence Wagner has been making the rounds to talk with reporters in Silicon Valley, Washington and New York, as well as any Congressional staff members who let him in the door, and industry groups. In general anyone who can influence public perception about Google is getting a visit.

However not everyone is falling for the Google-spin about how it really is just a small company in the larger scheme of things and isn’t any danger to anyone because the market they operate in can change in the blink of an eye

Eyes are rolling, especially in reaction to the idea that Google is a relatively small player in a giant market. “They describe where they are in a market under a kind of a fairy-tale spun gloss that doesn’t reflect their dominance of key sectors,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.”

[….]

Hand-wringing over Google’s power is not new. But some experts say that the steady stream of headlines about antitrust investigations could tarnish Google’s image with consumers, who by and large still view the company, and its growing list of free and innovative online services, positively.

“No company, whether it is Google, Microsoft or anyone else, wants to be portrayed in a negative way,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. “It is absolutely right for Google to be worried, to be prepared, to be paranoid and to respond accordingly.”

Source: New York Times :: Google Makes a Case That It Isn’t So Big

While little press junkets like this might have worked in the past when Google was actually a small company the fact is they aren’t a small company anymore, and they do wield a lot of power on the Web. suggesting otherwise is just plain facetious.

image courtesy of InformationWeek

Poor Google, trying to convince everyone it’s no danger to anyone is a post from: The Inquisitr