Google could be forced to alter its search results in Europe, after accusations that it is favouring its own services over rivals, according to a new report.
Writing in the Financial Times Alex Barker and Richard Waters report that The European Union’s competition chief, Joaquin Almunia, said it is his “conviction” that Google is unfairly promoting links to its own services above those of third party companies, and that he fears it is abusing its dominant position.
Last week US regulators gave Google the all-clear, but Almunia, who is leading a Brussels’ investigation into the matter, made it clear that he will take the opposite stance.
“We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google is] diverting traffic,” he told the Financial Times.
The report goes on to say that the level of change is unclear. It might just have to change the presentation of its own services.
Almunia is worred about “the way they present their own services” in search. Google might be forced to add disclaimers to its own products when they show up in search that say something like, “This is a Google service, which is why we have it so high up in our search results.”
If that’s all Google has to do, it’s getting off pretty easily, it seems. Especially if the EU is worried Google is “abusing” its power.
Google has been locked in the long-running row over whether it has changed its search results to give preferential treatment to links to its own services, at the expense of those from competitors.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt met with Mr Almunia shortly before Christmas to discuss possible ways in which the search engine could resolve the issue. Mr Almunia gave Google a month to come up with detailed proposals about potential concessions.
By contrast, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hailed Google as “one of America’s Great Companies,” when it cleared the search giant of any wrongdoing last week. Although Google was changing the complex codes it was doing to so to improve the quality of results rather than to eliminate the competition, the FTC ruled.
Google’s rivals reacted angrily to the FTC judgment. Microsoft branded it “weak” and “unusual” and called on Brussels to take a firmer stance.
A Google spokesman said: “We continue to cooperate with the European Union.”
