Fred Upton, a Republican lawmaker from Michigan, is charging Google with manipulating a government auction for C-block airwaves that will force those airwaves to be open to any device, even though Google did not win the auction.

The rules set forth by the government were simple: if the bidding for the C-block airwaves surpassed $4.6 billion, the company that won the auction would have to open up those airwaves to all devices, rather than restricting them to devices using their service. Google bid $4.71 billion, triggering the open-access rule. Verizon Wireless won the auction with a final price of $4.74 billion.

Basically Upton is saying that Google bid just enough to trigger the rule, but had no intention of winning the auction. He said that by triggering the rule, Google discouraged other potential bidders, short-changing U.S. taxpayers. I believe that to be a fallacy, because the only way U.S. taxpayers are short-changed is if the bidding would have gone higher than the final price of $4.74 billion. That means the open access rule would have had to have been triggered in order for the government to have earned more money from the auction.

What Upton is really upset about is this auction did not go so well for his corporate fat-cat buddies at Verizon Wireless or the other telecoms that were contenders in the bidding. Even though Verizon won, they are not going to profit as much as they would have if Google had not been involved. That means fewer donations to Fred Upton political campaigns in the future.
Bloomberg.com: News