EU launches antitrust probe into Google searches

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

EU launches antitrust probe into Google searches

BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Commission says it is launching a formal investigation into whether Google has abused its dominant market position in online searches.

The EU's competition watchdog says Tuesday that the probe follows complaints from other online search providers that Google put them at a disadvantage in both its paid and unpaid search results.

Google's competitors also allege that Google lists its own services above those of its rivals.

The Commission's investigation does not imply any wrongdoing by Google. Google has maintained that it hasn't broken any antitrust rules.

Source: The Associated Press

[Singh400]

Oh **** off EU.

[WindowsFanatic]

Google is the worst offending company by a long way in terms of monopoly abuse. After acquiring YouTube, it started to aggressively push YouTubu video results at the top of search result pages, which helped YouTube destroy competitors like MetaCafe. Nowadays Google has started advertising for its own products like Google Chrome browser at the home page -- another clear monopoly abuse.

It's a good thing that finally this evil company is coming under the scrutiny of antitrust regulators.

[riceBox]

What's next, EU filing antitrust on Milky Way for having monopoly on Earth?

[Kudos Veteran]

Interesting

[sudo]

Was bound to happen.

[Bengal34]

Wouldn't it be funny if they made them use a "search engine ballot screen"?

[hdood]

Oh **** off EU.

What's wrong with keeping an eye on very big corporations? Do you own Google stocks or something?

[Caleo Global Moderator]

The EU's competition watchdog says Tuesday that the probe follows complaints from other online search providers that Google put them at a disadvantage in both its paid and unpaid search results.

Google's competitors also allege that Google lists its own services above those of its rivals.

I lol'd.

QQ more, MSN/yahoo

[Glassed Silver]

[...]

The EU's competition watchdog says Tuesday that the probe follows complaints from other online search providers that Google put them at a disadvantage in both its paid and unpaid search results.

[...]

So if I google "search engine" I will get Google, Google, Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc...?

Well to be honest, this anti-trust stuff is getting ridiculous, it's not like the user is faced with a gun on Google.com to "obbey and download Chrome".

Just my 0.02USD

Glassed Silver:mac

[Fourjays Veteran]

Google is the worst offending company by a long way in terms of monopoly abuse. After acquiring YouTube, it started to aggressively push YouTubu video results at the top of search result pages, which helped YouTube destroy competitors like MetaCafe. Nowadays Google has started advertising for its own products like Google Chrome browser at the home page -- another clear monopoly abuse.

It's a good thing that finally this evil company is coming under the scrutiny of antitrust regulators.

How is it clear? Youtube was incredibly popular beforehand so it appearing at the top of search results over its competitors is hardly a surprise. As for the "video results" that could be argued as just another type of search, same way it has special ones for Twitter, Facebook, various forums, etc...

As for the browser, I've just done a search for "web browser" and the results in order are: Wikipedia, Wikipedia (list of browsers), Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, Flock. I've checked for other adverts in Firefox but can't find any.

Nothing wrong with them being investigated but it is even less obvious than the Microsoft cases, and they weren't exactly "clear cut" either.

[seta-san]

look at who's out of money again. looks like they spent microsoft's cache. google is an online service they should just continue running it from within the U.S. and give the finger to the E.U. *******.

[oceanmotion]

Stop complaining about the EU, it's getting really tired. I guess you like companies like Intel to get away with stuff forever for example.

The EU must look into these allegations, it's their job and they aren't the ones who brought it up, other companies complained so they are looking into it which is fair enough.

They don't find anything, world continues, they do find something, a company gets put back in line, world goes on. Nothing wrong with that in the slightest.

[hdood]

look at who's out of money again. looks like they spent microsoft's cache.

Just out of curiosity, were you as vocal when the United States government lead the way in prosecuting and convicting Microsoft? The EU just followed America's lead.

google is an online service they should just continue running it from within the U.S. and give the finger to the E.U. *******.

Google operates in most EU countries and so have to follow their laws. They are not a US-only operation.

[insanelyapple]

Google is the worst offending company by a long way in terms of monopoly abuse. After acquiring YouTube, it started to aggressively push YouTubu video results at the top of search result pages, which helped YouTube destroy competitors like MetaCafe. Nowadays Google has started advertising for its own products like Google Chrome browser at the home page -- another clear monopoly abuse.

It's a good thing that finally this evil company is coming under the scrutiny of antitrust regulators.

Yeah, im also happy about that; maybe EU decisions aren always right but theyre doing good job for rest of this world.

And by the way, im always wondering, how people (mostly north americans) can so easily sell or give for free their privacy, can deal with spying, monitoring etc.

[Thom]

look at who's out of money again.

Just what I thought, nice timing

[Singh400]

What's wrong with keeping an eye on very big corporations?

Nothing wrong with that at all. But it less of that, and more like "oh the piggy bank is empty again"...

Do you own Google stocks or something?

Nope, not that it is any of your business.

[leesmithg]

E.U. is skint as it has been bailing out Greece, Spain, Portugal and E.I.R.E. so it needs a new cash-cow.

Was Microsoft, now it is Google.

E.U. should be closed, it is run by no elected leaders.

[Julius Caro]

I dont get the EU hate. Are people aware of how many antitrust and price-fixing cases the EU has handled? Airlines, glass makers for cars, elevators/lifts/escalators... of course those dont get reported on neowin, but these people actually investigate the abusive behaviour. And with google, they're just investigating. And whatever the deal was with microsoft, nobody can deny that they eliminated netscape from the competition and were responsible for the perpetuation of an extremely insecure, non-standard compliant browser (IE6)

[fhpuqrgrpgvirzhpujbj]

Google should just temporarily shut down their services in the EU and put up a page that says to contact the EU government if they are unhappy with the decision.

In some cases this antitrust stuff makes sense (eg. the poster above me) but in this case it doesn't. Companies shouldn't be punished for being way better than the competition.

[Lilrich]

This is silly - enough said

[Julius Caro]

Google should just temporarily shut down their services in the EU and put up a page that says to contact the EU government if they are unhappy with the decision.

In some cases this antitrust stuff makes sense (eg. the poster above me) but in this case it doesn't. Companies shouldn't be punished for being way better than the competition.

This is just a formal investigation. I guess when you are a company or a person and want to take it to justice, the least you can expect them is to try to determine whether you have grounds to sue or not. In the first post, it is omitted which companies are making the claims and what exactly the accusations are, so people are just complaining without knowing the information. Google isn't being punished, just investigated. If it is indeed a case of "google is better, the rest are bitter", then nothing will happen.

[Ryoken]

I dont get the EU hate. Are people aware of how many antitrust and price-fixing cases the EU has handled? Airlines, glass makers for cars, elevators/lifts/escalators... of course those dont get reported on neowin, but these people actually investigate the abusive behaviour. And with google, they're just investigating. And whatever the deal was with microsoft, nobody can deny that they eliminated netscape from the competition and were responsible for the perpetuation of an extremely insecure, non-standard compliant browser (IE6)

Yet they didn't go after MS when ME eliminated Netscape ( which is a harsh way of saying NN4 sucked compared to IE4, and people stopped using it.. ), no they went after MS after the IE marketshare was already falling, for some BS reason.. Also MS isn't the reason IE6 is still around, MS has released 2 new browsers since then, companies just don't upgrade, that's on them, not MS. That would be like installing Windows ME and then complaining how insecure it is in todays world..

EU needs to just laugh at the face of the people who complained and leave. This is nonsense. You go to GOOGLE to search, so of course they should try and show off their own services first. I don't go to the Apple store to find out about Dell's do I ? If this is Opera's doing again I swear someone should just buy the company and shut it down once and for all.

[hdood]

Nothing wrong with that at all. But it less of that, and more like "oh the piggy bank is empty again"...

Pure nonsense. Luckily, Neowin has a separate section for people like you.

Nope, not that it is any of your business.

I always ask when people mindlessly defend corporations.

Google should just temporarily shut down their services in the EU and put up a page that says to contact the EU government if they are unhappy with the decision.

Google operates in the EU to make money. Making as much money as possible is the sole reason Google exists. If they were to pull out of the EU, they would lose massive amounts of money. It's not the EU that loses, it's Google.

In some cases this antitrust stuff makes sense (eg. the poster above me) but in this case it doesn't. Companies shouldn't be punished for being way better than the competition.

It's cute that you think you can say that without actually doing an investigation. Chances are you actually know nothing about the details.

[Julius Caro]

Yet they didn't go after MS when ME eliminated Netscape ( which is a harsh way of saying NN4 sucked compared to IE4, and people stopped using it.. ), no they went after MS after the IE marketshare was already falling, for some BS reason.. Also MS isn't the reason IE6 is still around, MS has released 2 new browsers since then, companies just don't upgrade, that's on them, not MS. That would be like installing Windows ME and then complaining how insecure it is in todays world..

EU needs to just laugh at the face of the people who complained and leave. This is nonsense. You go to GOOGLE to search, so of course they should try and show off their own services first. I don't go to the Apple store to find out about Dell's do I ? If this is Opera's doing again I swear someone should just buy the company and shut it down once and for all.

NN4 and IE4 were both great improvements over the respective 3.x versions. NN4 didnt suck. But all subsequent versions did. People stopped even caring about Netscape because IE was bundled with pretty much everything (Windows, office, etc) If I'm not mistaken, it wasnt until XP that microsoft actually integrated IE on the operating system (there were versions of windows 95 or 98 that came "with internet explorer", but XP was something else). So it was after late 2001 that these complaints had any ground. Now I'm perfectly fine with the browser ballot thing. Google chrome also has a ballot of their own to choose the default search engine.

And now it's not MSs fault that IE6 is still around (even though for some obscure reason, official binaries of windows xp sp3 still come with IE6 rather than any of newer versions). But from 2001 until Firefox appeared, it was.