Eric Schmidt told a congressional hearing in Washington: "May I simply say that I can assure you we're not cooking anything."

 

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on anti-trust is looking at whether Google abuses its market position.

 

The US Federal Trade Commission is also investigating the same issue.

 

The website search giant faces a further continuing investigation¹ by the European Commission.

 

 

Mr Schmidt told the senators: "Google does nothing to block access to any of the competitors and other sources of information."

 

When asked whether Google was a monopoly company, Mr Schmidt said the search engine giant was "in that area", adding that it recognised it had a special responsibility because of its market power.

 

In reference to software giant Microsoft - which faced years of anti-competition investigations² and subsequent fines - Mr Schmidt said: "We get it. By that I mean, we get the lessons of our corporate³ predecessors⁴."

 

Concern over Google's domination of the internet search - it has a global market share of about two-thirds - has grown as the company continues to expand into other internet areas, such as its own price comparison website and buying US mobile phone firm Motorola Mobility⁵.

 

Sen Michael Lee of Utah said that Google's market dominance gave it an "unnatural⁶ and extraordinary advantage", and it had a "clear and inherent（固有的） conflict of interest".

 

Mr Schmidt was chief executive of Google for 10 years until April, when he was replaced by Larry Page, one of the company's two founders⁷.

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