Google manipulated its search engine to promote its own services and took content from rivals - report

Google accused in "accidentally leaked" report of promoting its own services on its search engine, taking content from competitors - and threatening them if they complain

Google has been accused of manipulating its search results in order to promote its own services against rival websites in an incendiary report by US regulators.

The unpublished report, that was accidentally passed on to the Wall Street Journal, was part of a US Federal Trade Commission investigation that was ended in early 2013 after the organisation had extracted a number of concessions from the company.

The report concluded that Google's "conduct has resulted - and will result - in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets". Some staff at the Commission had even recommended that Google be charged with violating anti-trust laws - although their opinion was over-ruled.

The Commission report also claims that Google took content from rivals, including Amazon, TripAdvisor and Yelp in order to improve its own services. In one example cited by the FTC, Google copied Amazon rankings and used them to rank its own results for product searches. Reviews and ratings were also copied from Amazon, according to the report.

Furthermore, when rivals complained about their content being "scraped", it threatened them with downgrading in its search engine rankings, which could harm their businesses still further.

Part of the 2013 Federal Trade Commission settlement with Google involved an undertaking by Google to allow rivals to opt-out of Google's "content scraping" without fear of being demoted in Google's search engine rankings.

However, the full details of the report will fuel calls for the investigation to be re-opened, and for the European Commission, which is currently in settlement talks with Google over similar matters, to take a harder line.

Google general counsel, Kent Walker, played down the details of the report, arguing that the online landscape is now more competitive than ever. "Speculation about potential consumer harm turned out to be entirely wrong. Since the investigation closed two years ago, the ways people access information online have only increased, giving consumers more choice than ever," said Walker.

However, David Wood, who acts as legal counsel to internet commerce trade organisation called ICOMP, which represents Microsoft, among others, said that it undermined Google's claims of innocence: "It's a fascinating insight into Google's practices. It's made public things they didn't want made public and highlighted discrepancies between what they said in public and what they actually did in the US."