Eric Schmidt: EC and FTC should make a decision on Google lawsuit

Antitrust regulators at the European Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission should either sue Google or drop their cases against the search giant, its executive chairman Eric Schmidt suggests.

He also says that the company's relationship with Apple – which has booted Google's Maps and YouTube app off the newest version of its iPhone software released in September – is less like teenagers with guns, and "more like a country - they have disputes, but they've actually been able to have huge trade with each other." Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt said that he doesn't know how the competition regulators on both sides of the Atlantic – who have each been investigating the company for more than 18 months over claims that it manipulates search results and limits advertising flexibility – will decide. But he added: "We have been in quite continuous communication with [them] … it's time for them to sort of move to one resolution or another. It's not like they don't have a million documents and so forth." He adds that he remains "optimistic" about the outcome.