Google closes in on EU antitrust settlement
Posted on Jul 25, 2012 by equimedia
Google and the European Commission (EC) are believed to be nearing a settlement following a two-year investigation into the search giant's operations across the European Union (EU).
While discussions are still ongoing, reports suggest that Google is prepared to make significant concessions in order to avoid a protracted and potentially costly court case.
The investigation began in 2010 when antitrust investigators asked the search giant to explain how it ranked search results.
Complaints had been received by some businesses based in the EU - UK price comparison site Foundem, legal search engine ejustice.fr and Microsoft's Ciao! From Bing - alleging that Google algorithms rank their pages in the Serps than lower than those associated with Google's interests.
"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," Google said in response to the claims at the start of the investigation.
There are also allegations that Google scrapes content from certain rivals and imposes unfair restrictions on advertisers.
According to the Financial Times, the breakthrough concession is believed to be that Google is willing - in principle - to extend remedies for PC-based services to mobile search.
Avoiding a legal battle is definitely in Google's interests. The initial penalty could require Google to pay up to ten per cent of its global revenues, which would total $3.8 billion based on the $37.9 billion global revenue posted in 2011.
EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia has previously indicated that he wants to avoid a protracted legal dispute.
He told the Washington Post before this latest announcement: "What was Google's motto at the beginning 'Don't be evil'? I hope it continues to be important."
