The findings reveal, in staggering detail, the lengths to which Google went to maintain its dominance in search and bolster its lucrative advertising business.

Google typically ranks sites based on metrics like the number of links that point to a site and how often users click on those links. But at times
the company boosted links to its own properties even when rival services
might have better served its users, according to the report.

If acomparison shopping site from a competitor should have ranked highest, for instance, Google Shopping was sometimes placed above it. And when Yelp was deemed a more relevant result, Google Local would appear on top, the FTC staff wrote.

Google also copied, or “scraped,” content from rivals such as TripAdvisor and amazon.com, and threatened to remove those sites from its search listing if they objected, the Journal reported. In one instance, Google used Amazon’s sales rankings to determine how it ranked products for its own listings, it said.

In so doing, Google sent a message that it would “use its monopoly power over search to extract the fruits of its rivals’ innovations,” the FTC staff wrote.