After the announcement of Chrome the US FTC (Federal Trade Commission) began looking even harder at the relationship between Apple and Google.

As it stands it is possible that Google and Apple are in violation of Section 8 of the Sherman Anti Trust Act. This section covers shared directors and notes that it any companies that shares directors and have competing products that account for more than 2% or their revenue will be in violation of this section.

Apple and Google compete on many levels but most people do not realize it. They compete in the internet media market (YouTube and iTunes) the Phone OS market, the browser market and now the OS market.

This has sparked new concerns and has even opened up an investigation into whether or not they are in violation of Section 5 for unfair marketing practices.

Today Eric Schmidt has announced that he plans on talking to Apple's board about his role. This is a very timely announcement indeed because if Schmidt leaves the investigation gets dropped and no one gets in trouble.

There is a slight chance that the Section 5 investigation would continue but that is very doubtful.