The EU competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia has warned Google that it will face increased pressure from EC to change its anti-competitive practices.
Speaking at Fordham University in New York on Thursday, Almunia reiterated his concerns that the company is using its dominance in online search to harm business interests of competing search engines and search advertisers.
Earlier this year, the European Union had given Google a July deadline to provide a proposal that would resolve the ongoing antitrust investigation into the search giant’s practices.
Later in July, it emerged that Google agreed to add Android to the list of platforms on which it was meant to redesign the search algorithms.
Google currently accounts for 90 percent of all searches in Europe and although it is not illegal to hold a monopoly, it is forbidden to abuse it. The EC argues that Google displays links to its own vertical search services differently to its competitors and copies content from rivals, such as restaurant reviews.
According to Almunia, EC staff are currently engaged in a technical discussion with Google in order to assess the viability of its proposals. “If effective solutions were found quickly and tested successfully, competition could be restored at an early stage by means of a commitment decision,” said the competition commissioner.
“However, we are not there yet, and it must be clear that – in the absence of satisfactory proposals in the short term – I will be obliged to continue with our formal proceedings,” he added.
If Google’s suggestions don’t satisfy the EC, the company could be fined up to ten percent of its worldwide revenues – which for 2011 amounts to €2.9bn (£2.3bn), reports the Guardian.
Almunia has also confirmed that he takes the Microsoft browser “ballot screen” issue very seriously. In July, the EC obtained evidence that Microsoft had failed to enforce a legally binding agreement designed to offset its dominance in the browser market, caused by the bundling of Internet Explorer with almost every copy of Windows since 1995.
“I take compliance very seriously and I will make sure that we take the necessary decisions as a matter of priority,” said Almunia.
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Google and Microsoft just consider these sorts of proceedings as the 'cost of doing business'. They know they'll never get fined the real value to them of these sorts of practises, in addition the costs come so late these companies can have earned enough interest on their gains to pay their lawyer fees and the fine. so no real cost at all really, except maybe a bit of bad publicity, which gets so underplayed because the average person has so little perspective on how they are being abused.
Plus i suspect the US just sees this sort of activity by US companies as a means to expand their global influence, so they won't bite too hard either.
The EC needs to get really punitive if its going to have teeth, perhaps redistributing the gain to the real competition somehow, that would worry google and MS....this sort of action is just noise to them.
Not sure if Google really is a problem here, there is still competition.
The Microsoft browser issue really is none issue - the browser choice is just annoying and confusing for user. IE doesn't have the market share it once has so the EU is unjustified in its approach with Microsoft on this.
The EU would be better off investigating the use of compulsory 'app' shops such as Apples. This represents a monopoly and unfair competition for purchasing appsons for the iPhone and even more so for the iPad that has the lions share of the tablet market. Might stop others like Microsoft doing the same forcing us all to pay a 30% tax to these coimpanies.