Texas demands documents from Google

The Texas Attorney General's office is suing Google, demanding that the Web giant turn over documents it claims were illegally withheld from an antitrust investigation.

In a filing in state court earlier this week, Attorney General Greg Abbott said Google withheld a "large volume of documents" based on the claim that they were privileged attorney-client communications.

But Abbott argued that Google failed to meet its burden to demonstrate that many of the documents actually should be exempt from the investigation.

"We have shared hundreds of thousands of documents with the Texas Attorney General, and we are happy to answer any questions that regulators have about our business," a Google spokesman said in a statement. 

Texas is investigating whether Google manipulates its search results to ensure that its own services, such as YouTube, Google Maps and Google Plus, appear above its rivals.

Google's competitors argue that the company shouldn't be allowed to use its dominant search engine — which has about a 65 percent market share — to stifle competition.

The Federal Trade Commission and European regulators are conducting their own parallel antitrust investigations into Google over similar issues.

The company says there is nothing unfair about its search rankings. Even if the results did boost Google products, the company says, it wouldn’t be illegal.

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