Google closes in on deal in EU antitrust case

Google is offering new and “far-reaching” concessions to the European Union’s antitrust watchdog that are likely to be enough to settle allegations it is abusing its dominant position in Internet searches, the EU said Wednesday. EU Antitrust Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that he’s “strongly convinced” the new proposals sufficiently address the competition concerns, marking a major milestone in the three-year-old case.

Google will guarantee to display results from three competitors in a similar way to its own whenever it promotes its specialised search services like Google shopping, the EU Commission said. It will also label more clearly search results stemming from its own services to allow users to distinguish between natural search results and those promoted by Google.

Google has a market share of about 90 percent of Internet searches in Europe, compared with around 70 percent in the US.