To a certain extent, Google is partially to blame for the FTC antitrust investigation into its practices, but not for the reason you might think. Google executives were big cheerleaders for the 2008 Obama campaign, but you have to expect Democratic-run federal agencies to adopt a view of antitrust that expands government oversight of successful companies.

Geoff Manne and Joshua Wright have done extensive writing on the subject of the economics of search engine, and their post on the investigation and the links therein are a must-read for anyone interested in the topic.