Justice Department official cleared to oversee Google probes

The Justice Department’s top antitrust official recently won approval from the department to oversee investigations involving Google parent Alphabet Inc, a person briefed on the matter said.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the decision to allow Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust, to oversee matters involving the search engine and advertising company.

In November 2021, Google asked the Justice Department to consider requiring Kanter to recuse himself because of his work for a long list of Google critics like Yelp Inc, which Alphabet described as “vociferously advocating for an antitrust case against Google for years.”