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Sources say FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez is "struggling" with whether to bring an historic antitrust case against Google.

Whether the Federal Trade Commission brings an historic antitrust lawsuit against Google could hinge on the vote of a single commissioner: Democrat Edith Ramirez. A majority of the five commissioners must vote to approve any legal action. Democratic Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Democratic Commissioner Julie Brill appear favorable toward aggressive action against Google over how it ranks its search results, according to two people who have discussed the case with the commissioners. Those sources expect Republican Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen to oppose action on the most serious antitrust charges. Commissioner Republican J. Thomas Rosch is also expected to oppose the strongest charges, according to the observers, though he is often a wild card. Commissioner Rosch will leave the commission after the Senate confirms his replacement, Joshua Wright, but Wright has promised to recuse himself from the Google case because he received funding from the company for his academic work. That makes Ramirez the swing vote in the FTC's most significant case in years.

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney shattered spending records during their 2012 campaigns, eclipsing $2 billion in fundraising, the campaigns disclosed. President Obama, who surpassed $1 billion in mid-October, added $111 million to his campaign and affiliated committees in the final 2 1/2 weeks of the campaign. In all, the President raised $1.1 billion for his reelection effort. Romney's final money push in that same period netted him more than $89.5 million — enough to nudge him past the billion-dollar mark as well. His total fundraising for the cycle was $1.01 billion.

The record-busting sums — a result of both candidates bypassing public financing to build their own flush money networks — do not include the hundreds of millions more spent by outside groups. Both campaigns let loose a hailstorm of spending in the closing days before the Nov. 6 election. Obama, through his main campaign account, shelled out more than $176 million, while Romney spent $105 million. Neither candidate exhausted his historic haul. Romney had $24.4 million in the bank at the end of November and Obama had more than $14 million on hand.

Minority advocates have told the Federal Communications Commission that, despite reports to the contrary, they do not support loosening the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule (NBCO) without evidence it will not negatively impact diversity.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the National Urban League (NUL), National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Asian American Justice Center (AAJC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) said they were writing to clarify their position. While in a filing to the FCC on media ownership the groups did say they would not object to relaxing the rule, they wrote this week, they only did so with the explicit caveat that "if such a relaxation would not diminish minority ownership." They say any implication that their support does not require that evidence, which they say the FCC has not provided, is not correct.

Ambassador Terry Kramer said the United States will be working "day and night" to ensure new Internet regulations are kept out of a United Nations treaty.

"Fundamentally the conference, to us, should not be dealing with the Internet sector," Ambassador Kramer told reporters on a conference call from Dubai, where the treaty is being negotiated at a conference hosted by the United Nations International Telecommunications Union. He is leading the U.S. delegation at the conference. Ambassador Kramer shot down a report that the U.S. and Canada failed to win backing from other countries for a proposal to keep the Internet out of the treaty. The two countries are pushing to keep the focus of the negotiations on telecommunications networks, so that the updated rules would only apply to major operators like AT&T and Verizon. He said the U.S. opposed a Russian proposal that calls for national governments to assume greater authority over key Internet functions, such as assigning domain names.