EC Challenges Google On Anti-Trust Issues, by Ulrika Lomas, LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels
Friday, February 26, 2010

The European Commission (EC) has announced its decision to launch an antitrust inquiry following complaints filed by three online companies against Google.

The EC wrote in its press statement that it had not opened a formal investigation for the time being. "As is usual when the Commission receives complaints, it informed Google earlier this month and asked the company to comment on the allegations. The Commission closely cooperates with the national competition authorities."

Such preliminary inquiries rarely result in adverse rulings. However it fuels the controversy over Google’s market dominance and the possibility of abuse. In America, the Federal Trade Commission is enquiring into Google’s takeover of AdMob, a mobile-advertising firm, while TradeComet has accused Google of unfairly raising advertising rates in an anti-trust complaint.

In a Google blog, Google said: "Foundem - a member of an organisation called ICOMP which is funded partly by Microsoft - argues that our algorithms demote their site in our results because they are a vertical search engine and so a direct competitor to Google." A second complainant, ejustice.fr, "seems to echo these concerns".

Google went on to write: "after Microsoft acquired Ciao! in 2008 (renaming it Ciao! from Bing) we started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions. They initially took their case to the German competition authority, but it now has been transferred to Brussels."

"The question they ultimately pose is whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners. This is not the case. We always try to listen carefully if someone has a real concern and we work hard to put our users' interests first and to compete fair and square in the market. We believe our business practices reflect those commitments."

Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising group WPP told the Financial Times that its clients would welcome greater transparency in its business practices and a regulatory review which made sure there was nothing going amiss.