Two months ago the chief executive officer, Eric Schmidt of the search engine giant, Google, resigned from the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. Now the resignation comes from the Arthur Levinson as the member of the Board of Directors of Google. He was on both the boards as a director prior to the resignation.

Resignation became a necessity for these two directors are the two companies have started to compete more directly and openly. The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was pleased with this resignation as it had been probing on this issue. According to the law of United States, a person cannot be a member of two organizations simultaneously when both are direct competitors or rivals.

Earlier Google and Apple were earlier seen as allies to beat the Microsoft in the business. However, in the recent times both Apple and Google have been seen as competitors especially in the mobile phone segment.

The Federal Trade Commission chairman, Mr. John Leibowitz welcomed the resignation of Arthur Levinson. Having a member in the Board of Directors of such two rival companies raises the question of severe anti trust issues. Anti trust issues could cause serious damage to the reputation of the company too. Al Gore, who was the former US vice president, is he last person who is the connecting link between these two companies. Al Gore serves as an advisor to Google and still retains the member in the Apple board of directors.

Via: BBC