Google may
be the search engine leader and a heavyweight in the mobile/electronics arena,
but the tech giant has been in a sticky situation as of late with antitrust
settlements.
Only days
ago, it was announced that Google had set aside $500 million USD for
antitrust settlements from a pending U.S. federal antitrust inquiry. The U.S.
Department of Justice is launching an investigation, and according to Google,
this chunk of change for settlements dropped its first-quarter net income to
$1.8 billion.
Now,
reports state that Google is close to settling an
investigation that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
launched against the tech leader last year. The FDA looked into whether Google
knowingly accepted pharmacy ads online that break the law. According to
reports, Google was making hundreds of millions of dollars from these online
pharmacy ads, which allegedly sold expired or counterfeit drugs, and/or sold
these drugs without a valid prescription, but it is currently unclear which, if
both, are true.
Last
year, Google made changes to its online pharmacy ad policies after the FDA
launched the investigation.