EU Opens Google Probe
Google announced late Tuesday that the European Union has opened an antitrust investigation into the Internet firm. The European Commission, the EU's regulatory arm, said three firms had filed complaints against Google, according a post by Google Senior Competition Counsel Julia Holtz on the firm's public policy blog.
Google said the three firms include the British price comparison site Foundem, a French legal search engine, ejustice.fr, and Microsoft's Ciao from Bing. Foundem argues that Google's "algorithms" demote the British site in search results because it is a "vertical search engine and so a direct competitor to Google," allegations echoed by ejustice.fr, Holtz said.
She noted that Ciao was a long-time Google AdSense partner, and Google had a good relationship with the firm. After Ciao was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, Holtz said Google "started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions."
"While we will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints, we are confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law," Holtz said.
"Although Microsoft hasn't been notified yet by the commission, we do believe it's natural for competition officials to look at online advertising given how important it is to the development of the Internet and the dominance of one player," Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said in a statement. "In the meantime, we continue to cooperate with the German government's investigation into complaints brought by Ciao" and others.
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