Feds Reportedly Demand Google Offer Settlement or Face Trial

It's not extortion when the government is doing it

Google Inc. (GOOG) is being pressed by U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz to offer to resolve the agency's antitrust investigation in the next few days or face a lawsuit, two people familiar with the matter said.

Google has been in discussions with the agency for about two weeks and hasn't put any remedy proposals on the table, said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private.

For almost 20 months, the FTC has been probing whether Mountain View, California-based Google is abusing its dominance of the Internet, and it's prepared to sue if the operator of the world's largest search engine fails to make an acceptable proposal, the people said.