EU Offers Google Chance To Settle Prior To Anti-Trust Enquiry

Fluffeh writes "The EU has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in advertising to benefit its own advertising services at the expense of competitors. In a twist however, rather than initiating formal proceedings, the EU has given Google a chance to settle the whole matter without much fuss. They outlined four changes that Google can make that will put it firmly back in the good graces of the EU. Google has been given 'a matter of weeks' to propose remedies to the four issues — which all tie in with how search results are displayed, their format and their portability to other platforms. This matter has come before the EU based on complaints by a few small companies and Microsoft." The four issues: Displaying results to their own services specially, use of user reviews from other sites in search results, Advertising "...agreements result in de facto exclusivity requiring them to obtain all or most of their requirements of search advertisements from Google," and concerns that Google is imposing "...contractual restrictions on software developers which prevent them from offering tools that allow the seamless transfer of search advertising campaigns across AdWords and other platforms..."

Comments

Detailed review of competition

[Mattygfunk1]

The European Commission appears to be quite specific and detailed in it's requests. It's encouraging that a body has enough resources to protect even slight issues regarding competition.

That said, "slight" might be worth millions to Google / its competitors, especially as smaller firms have complained as well as Microsoft.

Re:Google

[neokushan]

I can easily be described as a google fanboy - I have (and love) my Android Phone (a Galaxy Nexus, in fact). I signed up to Gmail back when it was invite-only and people only had about 6 invites to give out (or sell/trade, as was the case back then) and I even use Google+. However, I completely agree with what the above poster is saying. Fanboyism aside, no company should be able to abuse its position in the marketplace. Even if Google isn't entirely guilty or found to not be doing anything deliberately that harms competition, its still absolutely appropriate that they're investigated and regulated accordingly.
The same should apply to any and all businesses with a large hold on the market, be they software companies, banks, pharmaceuticals, governments and so on.

I like Google on the whole and I genuinely believe that the founders were genuine in their model of "Do no Evil", but its a huge company now with a lot of power - I find it hard to believe that every single employee, every manager, every executive is entirely altruistic and doing what's best for everyone rather than what's just best for them/Google.

Prepare for a worse experience...

[brunes69]

Google is intentionally abusing their position to promote their own products and hide competitors. Yes, this thing matters.

LMFTFY:

Google is intentionally abusing their position to improve the overall user experience. Yes, this thing matters.

There, that's better.

When I do a search from JFK to LAX, guess what - it is NICE that Google immediately knows that I am interested in a flight and shows me prices. It is NICE that they will show me a map and photos of my destination. It reduces the number of clicks and get gets me what I want faster. The same can be said for all of Google's optimized in-line services. Furthermore, I have never in my life ever heard of evidence showing that Google actually hides the result of a competitor... do you have any evidence to back that up (that is not already refuted)?

Google is very upfront about everything they do, and there are ample other search engines you can use as a user, and that people can advertise on as well.

Re:Prepare for a worse experience...

[fwoop]

This is similar to how costco works. They have control over the retail space, and their goal is to make the shopping experience great for consumers.. That means dirt cheap, at the expense of suppliers. Suppliers go out of business, that's the point. So costco offers cheap ink refills, potentially putting companies like HP out of business. HP hates Costco. Lots of suppliers hate Costco, lots of company hates Costco, but consumers love Costco. Because only consumers matter. The difference here is competitors are using regulators instead of the market place to compete.

Re:Google

[Xest]

Completely false.

The EU has initiated anti-trust action against just as many European companies as foreign companies. Look at the mobile phone market for example, European companies like Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile etc. have been under a constant barrage of regulation from the EU for years over roaming fees etc.

Also your first example doesn't even make any sense whatsoever, AMD isn't even a European company, it's American.

Part the reason for Europe being quite good in this respect is because it is not one country, there's a lot of inter-country rivalry in the EU itself - you can guarantee a British judge wont rule in a French company's favour against a US company for example because of some feeling he must protect a European company because the Brits generally love the French about as much as they love the Germans - i.e. not very much. Similarly you'll get the same sentiment to various other countries in Europe, from their own neighbours. There just isn't some feeling of a European superstate that must trounce outsiders at all costs. Successive British and Czech governments for example have aligned far more closely with Washington than they have Brussels. There just isn't some grand European patriotism for your theory to work out.

The fact you've no idea whatsoever about the topic you're conversing about doesn't make you right, it just makes you a tit. Please, do Slashdot a favour, don't jump into conversations you don't have the foggiest about and assert that you're right and no other suggestion could possibly have any validity.

The biggest irony of it all is that the only reason you're complaining about it is because you yourself feel it's your patriotic American duty to stand up for American companies.

If only you knew which companies were actually American. That would be a start.