Ms. Wilkinson. (www.paulweiss.com)

Well, it doesn’t look like Google’s antitrust investigation is disappearing any time soon. The FTC hasn’t decided whether to bring a lawsuit, but the agency is bringing in a famous litigator to help run things. Reuters reports that former federal prosecutor and courtroom badass Beth Wilkinson will join the investigation Monday. She is perhaps best known for helping send Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to death row.

Now, the FTC does not want anyone assuming that this guarantees a lawsuit. Richard Feinstein, who is the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, told the AP that they are simply “delighted to have someone of her caliber helping us on such an important matter.” But former FTC official David Wales was more colorful:

“This may not be a declaration of all-out war, but it’s like things have been ratcheted up to ‘Defcon 4,’” said Wales, now a partner at the law firm of Jones Day. “You don’t do something like this unless you think there is a good chance there will be litigation.”

Reuters also points out that the last two times the agency did this, lawsuits have been the eventual result.

Let’s just say there’s probably a reason the search goliath is spending all that money on lobbying.

(twitter.com)

What's the other half of Google's dynamic duo up to now that Larry Page is running the show? He's campaigning for the freedom of the internet -- just as his company faces an FCC fine.

Sergey Brin tells the Guardian that, "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world," adding ominously, "I am more worried than I have been in the past," and "It's scary."

So what’s got Sergey so worked up? For one thing, he doesn’t like that more and more data is cordoned off in Facebook and apps which, of course, Google can’t crawl. Meanwhile, countries like China are attempting to restrict the medium, even as the American entertainment industry lobbies for stricter copyright protection. We're sure that the social network appreciates being lumped with such illustrious company.

Mr. Brin’s push is rather conveniently timed, given the company's own tiff with government. The FCC just fined the company $25,000 for poor cooperation with an investigation into potential StreetView data-collection shenanigans. Apparently the company initially offered investigators just five documents and zero emails. From the report:

"Although a world leader in digital search capability, Google took the position that searching its employees' e-mail 'would be a time-consuming and burdensome task.'"

Nothing makes you skeptical of the government quite like a government investigation.

Laughing on the inside

Ever since the advent of the agency model for ebook pricing--the oh-so-valuable wedge publishers needed to fight Amazon’s $9.99 price point--it’s been the big question: Are they actually going to get away with this? Today we have our answer: Not if the Department of Justice has anything to say about it! Alleging collusion to fix prices the agency has filed an antitrust suit against Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and Apple itself.

The allegations are awfully cloak-and-dagger. If true, they suggest the publishing industry has carried over a certain old-world stylishness into the digital age. From the filing (courtesy of the Verge):

Starting no later than September of 2008 and continuing for at least one year, the Publisher Defendants' CEOs (at times joined by one non-defendant publisher' s CEO) met privately as a group approximately once per quarter. These meetings took place in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants and were used to discuss confidential business and competitive matters, including Amazon's e-book retailing practices.

Emphasis most definitely ours. We like to imagine these meetings looked a little something like this.

Cut to Cupertino:

On February 19, 2009, Apple Vice President of Internet Services Eddy Cue explained to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in an e-mail, "[a]t this point, it would be very easy for us to compete and I think trounce Amazon by opening up our own ebook store."

As of this moment, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster have already settled. Apple and MacMillan, on the other hand, may well fight: Bloomberg reports they'll argue that, by pushing back against Amazon's overwhelming dominance, the agreements actually increased competition in the space.

Amazon, meanwhile, called the move a “big win for Kindle owners” and promised, “We look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books."

Where’s a GIF of that laugh when we need it?