It's been often said that consumers aren't the real customers of Google... now competitors are urging the FTC to take that into account in their regulatory app

It's been often said that consumers aren't the real customers of Google... now competitors are urging the FTC to take that into account in their regulatory approach: "Instead of considering harm to people who come to Google to search for information, Google’s competitors and their supporters say that the government should have been looking at whether Google’s actions harmed its real customers — the companies that pay billions of dollars each year to advertise on Google’s site." The logic is that competitors are forced to advertise on Google, driving up prices for everyone in that category: "Drawing fewer customers as a result of Google’s free links, those competitors are forced to advertise more to draw traffic. And advertisers who aren’t competitors have fewer places to go to reach consumers, meaning Google can use its market power to raise advertising prices."