EU launches probe into Google anti-trust violations

EU regulators will investigate whether Google Inc has abused its dominant position.

European Union regulators will investigate whether Google Inc has abused its dominant position in the online search market by deliberately lowering links to smaller rivals sites in its search results.

The European Commissions move,announced Tuesday,is the first formal investigation by a major regulatory agency into whether Google has been manipulating its search engine to stifle competition and funnel more traffic to its own services. It could potentially result in billions in fines,as in the recent cases of Microsoft Corp and Intel Corp.

Several competitors,one owned by Microsoft,say that links to their services appear too low on Googles general search results.

They also claim that when Google offers similar services,such as online price comparison,it puts its own links higher on the sponsored search results,the ones companies have to pay for. In addition,the Commission will look into whether Google prevented advertising partners from posting ads from Googles competitors on their sites and whether it was making it more difficult for customers to move data from their advertising campaigns to other ad platforms.

The issue could boil down to whether Google has a right to programme its search engine the way it wants or whether it is abusing the market power it has accumulated. This much is clear: Googles own services consistently have ranked at or near the top of its search results. In some cases,theres clear logic to the rankings because some of Googles properties,including its mapping service and YouTube video site,are considered to be among the best. But other Google services,such as finance and health,that arent as well regarded also tend to get high rankings in the search results.

Google has steadfastly insisted that it avoids bias in its search results by using a closely guarded formula for determining rankings. But at other times,Google executives have conceded they sometimes give their own services preferential treatment,and have argued if users arent happy,they can easily migrate to another search engine.

The three companies that lodged complaints in February are UK-based price comparison site Foundem,French legal search engine ejustice.fr and shopping site Ciao,owned by Microsoft through its own search engine Bing.

Story continues below this ad

Several websites in the US have also complained that their links have been unfairly buried in Googles search results and in some instances,have even filed lawsuits in the US.

On Tuesday,Google reiterated its belief that it hasnt done anything wrong. Since we started Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry ensuring that ads are always clearly marked,making it easy for users and advertisers to take their data with them when they switch services, Google said in an emailed statement.

Google said that there were compelling reasons why the complaining companies were ranked poorly.