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Google Could Face Heavy Antitrust Fines In the EU
SquarePixel writes "Europe's competition watchdog is considering formal proceedings against Google over antitrust complaints about the way it promotes its own services in search results, potentially exposing the company to a fine of 10 percent of its global turnover. Google is accused of using its search service to direct users to its own services and to reduce the visibility of competing websites and services. If the Commission found Google guilty of breaking E.U. competition rules, it could restrict Google's business activities in Europe and fine the company up to 10 percent of its annual global revenue (US$37.9 billion last year)."
Can you give an example in relation to their promoting their own services through their search engine? The first thing I tried to test it was searching for "maps" on Google search and sure enough Google Maps came up first. But then I tried searching for "maps" on Bing and it also gave me Google maps first so maybe Google maps is just a good first result for that. I'm sure there must be other search terms that demonstrate a problem though, so what might be worth trying?
Google+. It mixes with your results.
Even if Google does what they suggest, Why is it illegal for a company to promote itself over others on the services it provides for free. If you don't like Google, don't use their services. It's not a requirement.
If I use Google search to search for "search" then Google search comes up seventh (after Metasearch, Bing, Twitter seach, Dogpile and Yahoo(twice)), which sort of surprised me. But I suppose it makes sense because most people using Google to search for "search" are looking for something other than Google.
I worked out that a Europe wide 0.5% financial transaction tax would be enough to pay an unconditional base income of 400euro/month to every single person living in Europe with money to spare. ...just saying.
But do they have the option of 'mixing' results from other social networks? My impression (perhaps unfounded?) was that Facebook wouldn't let them have access to the equivalent information.
Would make more sense to me to fine them 20% (or whatever) of all EU monies, instead.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Can you give an example in relation to their promoting their own services through their search engine? The first thing I tried to test it was searching for "maps" on Google search and sure enough Google Maps came up first. But then I tried searching for "maps" on Bing and it also gave me Google maps first so maybe Google maps is just a good first result for that. I'm sure there must be other search terms that demonstrate a problem though, so what might be worth trying?
So Google's services are the most used simply because they are the best, not because Google are a bunch of anti competitive corporate weasels just like all the other big tech corporations. Well then, by the same logic Microsoft Windows must be so widely used, simply because it is the best Desktop OS ever written.
This money is added to the central budget of the EU.
Bing does this as well, I do not think it is particularly fair to start fining people for doing something that has been going on and in the open since internet searches were first born.
Now if they wanted to created some regulations to protect internet searches to make them fair, well that would be a good start.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The article links to another article with a very different tone from July:
"Google and EU poised to settle antitrust investigation "
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/072412-google-and-eu-poised-to-261131.html
Which includes the line: "Schmidt's proposals addressed all of the concerns they had raised with Google, European officials told the Financial Times."
Exactly. Google couldn't get Facebook to play, so they took it upon themselves to provide a better user experience. In fact, facebook provided information to Microsoft which they integrated with Bing, so it was possible, but they chose not to do this for Google, so Google simply took it upon themselves to innovate. But some Europeans with a baguette in one hand and a shitty search engine/service in the other complain from their corner of the world. Oh no, their crappy subpar website is ruined by the evil Google with their superior service! Let's fine the innovators!
This is why Europe will never get a Google/Apple/Microsoft company that starts in Europe. Europe simply doesn't understand basic economics. If Google wanted to, they could make sure search results always favor them, but they don't, they go above and beyond many other companies who promote their own services.
And thank God. When I type <name of store>, City, State I want a map. Not a plug for MapQuest. Not a plug for Bing. And most certainly not iOS 6 telling me I'll have to charter a kayak, and, by the way, Gander Mountain has a great deal on paddles.
A related problem: My local Wal-Mart has a Subway inside the store. Why don't you go picket them? There's clearly no way other sandwich services can compete.
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In my experience, the only people who complain to the EU are competitors trying to fiddle with Googles business model. I think people who sponsor that sort of activity should attract fines of their own.
People do not look for 'search' and then find google. People google it.
People will use 'search' if they want something else then google. They are already at google, so they will not select that.
Searches are related to what people search for and to what it is linked to. So to me it is logical that googleling for 'search' won't show google.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I doubt very much though that the EU will/can do very much here.
One part of the problem is that people are trusting Google more than almost any other company. Google often exercises restrain and good will and of course for most services doesn't charge anything (because its users are not its customers actually), so people are extremely forgiving.
I'm not sure about what will grow out of Google. I wouldn't be surprised though if Google were the first iteration of a more or less lenient super-AI of the future. If any of you have read the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks: The first Minds probably looked very similar to Google. If *this* will be the ultimate outcome, I'd say fuck the EU and hail Google.
Reality isn't a novel though...
They heavily promote Chrome with Google Earth, Youtube (especially to Windows XP users) and search, possibly Gmail and maps too.
But to me, this is akin to a restaurant being threatened with fines for not directing some of the customers to its competitors.
The search engine industry should advertise like everyone else, or offer superior service.
There are some interesting parallels here. Google is starting to look more and more like an operating system, with the menu bar at the top and the integration of a lot of their services into a desktop-like interface. And in a way, the "start menu" for this operating system is Google Search (it is after all the one at google.com). So the question then is, are they allowed to bundle other applications with this operating system, or should they allow others to compete with their own applications? In that sense it's similar to the whole Windows/IE bundling case. And in fact, Google could argue just like Microsoft did (although MS made some ridiculous claims about it being technically impossible to remove IE) that the embedded Maps is not a separate service at all, but that Search simply has an embedded viewer for search results that are geographical locations, which happens to be powered by the same technology as Maps.
Of course, what matters legally is the effect the thing has on the markets, not any kind of technical consideration. In that case, Google Search is a near-monopoly in the search market, and it's conceivable that its embedding of Google Maps to display results advantages Google Maps over other mapping services. I'm not sure how you would prove that (and have no idea what the standard of proof would be here), but if it turns out to be the case, then Google could remedy it by offering any other mapping services an open API that they can use to register their mapping service with Google, with Google then giving the user the option to choose a mapping service for showing embedded search results. That would be similar to the IE solution.
As for Google being evil, right now the EU is investigating if there is a crime at all. Antitrust law is a murky thing; there is no exact borderline where a market leader becomes a monopolist and where integrating services or products becomes too big a distortion of the market. So let's wait for the EU opinion first. Then, let's see how Google handles it. Will they work with the regulators to find an acceptable solution and implement it quickly, or will they try to lie, sue and lobby their way out of it like Microsoft did? I'd say that their reaction of a potential complaint constitutes a much better test of their character than just the fact that the EU has decided to investigate something.
I'm not saying you're from the US or anything, but the US does the same thing. We just use the term "patent infringement" rather than "antitrust." (note: that's an analogy, not a pair of synonyms)
I have been a captive in America my entire life. Everybody and everything uses customary units instead of metric.
It would have been nice if they could have actually regulated them before hitting them with a $3.7 billion fine for putting an ad for their products on the side of their delivery trucks.
I.e., tell them they could be liable, and could you please stop that? Instead of the very first move being to make a massive hit on a foreign company (as also seen in the anti-Samsung verdicts in the US and Europe).
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Maybe Google should have simply posted up their own services as an Advertisement item in search. Instant First rank, no problem -- they could even have the department "pay" the rest of Google to do it (although I'm pretty sure they would have to be careful with accounting rules, taxes, and so forth).
you mean the thing which you can *turn off*?
As this comes directly from Microsoft and a couple of paid minions of them its pretty lame. Its so obvious who is behind this. What Google should try to do is to get any remedies they have to do be written down as much of it is applicable to Microsofts own promoting of MS Office inside Windows and its Server products etc.
When you cant compete, litigate. If everybody laughs at you for the sheer audacity, get a couple of toady minions to do your dirty work.
HTTP/1.1 400
This is getting old, the every couple days another story splashing the Evil Google name in the headlines with hardly any change from the previous round. There will be progress in the MS-EU-Google tussle over time but basically there's nothing to say until it's over and done with. And by then some of the wild accusations of exposure will magically have faded to something actually reasonable.
You don't have to be a "shill" to realize your scenario, as presented, is ridiculous. You don't want a map, but claim Google is unfairly depriving MapQuest their share of the "people who don't want a map" market?
Google is trying to put something useful in that spot. Search for "Keanu Reeves" and, instead of a map, you'll get a short bio. Search for "Pb" and you'll get it's periodic table entry.
Bing and Yahoo! could do something like that, but they'd rather fill that space with ads.
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I guess Samsung is a small man with no finances. Assuming you don't count billions in revenue and the largest slice of the tablet market. Or how about the lawsuits between Microsoft and Motorola.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
OK, go use Bing. Or Blekko. Or Dogpile. Or Ask. Or is that too hard for you to do? You don't like the way Google works so don't keep using it.
You can bet all of those complaints are from Microsoft's family of shill companies. They can't compete from a technology point of view so they complain to the EU about their incompetence. It's about time Google goes ballistic on Microsoft and exposes them for the dirt bag company they really are.
Uh... I was certain "patent infringement" and "antitrust" cases promote monopolization and competition respectively. I must have been wrong and will read on that.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Yep. And at the same time it would cut down on speculation in the financial markets and high speed trading arbitrage, which is why the investment banks and brokers in Wall Street and London are so dead set against it. It would cut into a major source of revenue for them, oh and probably help stabilize markets by reducing flash trading.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Some people haven't learned the lessons of history.
No it would not because you are not taking into the account modification of behaviour.
If you do that, you'll simply end most of the financial transactions that can be taxed, some will find new homes and some will just disappear. Most of the smaller traders in the markets will disappear, for who 0.5% is definitely the game killer, they can't make a profit on average if that type of confiscatory tax is applied, and it is confiscatory in case of most traders.
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(all of this sets aside the obvious issue of lack of morality of such behavior - confiscation of private property via income taxes)
MY OTHER COMMENTS
If the EU charges a fixed fraction of Google's global revenue per infraction, including a lot of revenue that's not part of the EU, then why should they get to keep all of it? Instead, this sounds like a protectionist scheme. The fee relative to the amount of business in the EU is much less for a company that does most or all of its business in the EU relative to a foreign company that does a small part in the EU.
For example, suppose I have two businesses each doing a billion euros of business. One is solely in the EU and the other does only ten per cent of its business in the EU. A fine scheme like the above has them paying the same fine for the same crime despite one business having far more business in the EU than the other. That means that the foreign business faces the same risk of fines on a tenth of the business that the other business has.
It's yet another way to block foreign businesses without (as of yet) provoking a response from the WTO or other treaties.
Read up on rules on monopolies. If you have a dominant position in one area and use that to gain an advantage in other areas, that's when you are in trouble. If no such rules were in place, the natural evolution would be that one company crushing all the others. Be thankful that that this is happening. It's good for you in the end.
Fully agree. However, when does one thing (search) become two things (search, maps), in which the one is used to abuse the other? Based on the suggestions here, the only thing that Google can do is provide an interface for customers to choose absolutely everything. However, where do you draw the line? What if I want my searching based on a specific algorithm - have google leveraged their ad presentation infrasstructure into the algorithm development business? What if I want them to use a different ad server? What if I want them to use a competitor's font - are the typesetters being disadvantaged here?
What if we parametricize this - are they extending search into restaurant reviews - should Yelp sue? What about the whitepages - should phone information services sue? Etc, etc.
There's an insidious aspect in that because Google's product is free, every aspect of their operation can be seen as another 'free service' that is connected (illegally?) to their search operation. Is Maps another service or just another way of showing search results?
I could see a clean break with a service like Mail - that has little to do (from a user's standpoint) with their core search business, though on the biz side of course they're both part of the ad business. So if they're popping up GMail on top when you search for Hotmail (they don't, btw), that would be one thing. But simply presenting search results on a map, or showing a map of a locality that is searched for, calling that anti-trust is brainless.
Two other things: 1) Companies shouldn't have to guess what can be construed as anti-trust under very creative definitions, they should be given notice first. 2) There's a clear conflict of interest when the body that fines you gets to keep the loot.
"Google just shoved their map in there ... and no other service can do that."
So if you go to Starbucks you want them to offer you coffee from the guys around the corner?
And they have to offer you that _first_?
Are you crazy?
It's a private company, not some Government Agency who has to be impartial.
They show you what they have, if you don't like that, don't go there.
"Hey, Google. (insert OP contents here)...unless a more...equitable...arrangement is agreed?"
Microsoft started donating hand-over-fist, This, combined with their philanthropy, largely dried up attacks by pontificating politicians around the world.
An outrageous statement? No, a prediction. Google will learn to play the game and start making many more political "donations".
And, to quasi-knowitalls, what part of prediction don't you guys understand?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And 1% would give everybody a monthly income of 800. And why stop there? A 25% tax would give everybody 20,000 euro a MONTH and everybody will be filthy rich and nobody will have to work ever again. You, Sir, are a genius!
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
That is... the worst analogy ever.
Google is a public company, not a private one.
Starbucks is not a coffee monopoly who controls 80-90% of the world's coffee.
Your argument means that Microsoft should be free to integrate anything they want into Windows. Anything at all. And if you don't like it then don't buy a Windows PC.
It's very simple - Google controls a monopoly share of web searches. A monopoly share is legal as long as you don't use it in illegal ways (such as using it to push into new markets). Google is now bundling their own products right into their search while excluding competitors from getting the same privilege. This, quite obviously, gives their own products an advantage over competitors. This means that Google is using its search engine to push into new markets and quash competitors.
How is this in any way confusing? How could anyone agree that this is a legitimate business practice?
I spent the last 15 years seeing them rage against MS for illegal bundling practices that sucked their air out of the room for competitors, but when Google does it everything is hunky-dory It's funny how Slashdot has such massive double standards. It's like you're PROUD of it.
Why not? There are countries in the EU which pay more than that in VAT.
" The first thing I tried to test it was searching for "maps" on Google search and sure enough Google Maps came up first."
I tried to search for "foot ball" and +"foot ball" and there was not a single match in the first dozen results, those were all for the dyslexic morons that Google expects us to be and just assumes we are searching for 'football' and don't know how it's spelled.
If I insist and ask for +"foot ball" -"football" the first link doesn't have the second search term, as expected, but also not the first.
It's just getting more and more tedious to use.
And that's just an example I cooked up where everything happens on the first results page, usually you have to wade through dozens of results pages, because Google just doesn't return what I ask for but what it thinks I want.
I want a fucking search engine, not a psychic.
All this presupposes that Google has a "monopoly" in search, which is retarded beyond measure. You can make a much more compelling case that they have a monopoly in advertising, but that has nothing at all to do with poor MapQuest.
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VAT is different. VAT gets refunded for the vast majority of payments.
Only the final sale to the consumer actually ends up having VAT. All the (hundreds) of purchases that preceded that final purchase have their VAT refunded.
Like removing the great Google Maps app for their own worthless version. If that is not anti-competitive then I don't know what it is. And please don't tell me that is because it's apple own device and they can do anything they want, because google services are on google servers and they should be able to do anything they want as well.
I am seeing a huge number of Youtube results at the beginning of responses when I have not made any search entry for video. I find it very doubtful these would show up if were a competing video service.
There is no "natural" monopoly in search, and switching to a competitor is so trivial it's sad. In America, at least, you have to do more than win a popularity contest to be a monopolist.
"But where's the ability to choose another map data provider?" you ask. It's in that bar, at the top of your browser. If anyone actually wanted Bing maps, bing.com is even shorter to type than google.com.
And if Google's spidering is "directly hampering"F a business' "ability to stay operational," they deserve to go bankrupt. Google respects robots.txt.
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you are too late for the USSR, sorry.
tell me about how bad life is in the us when people are lining up for iphones and ipods every time a new one is released. or people paying 1200 a year for cable tv. or how about people leasing cars they could never afford to buy. yeah times are hard in the us. not. what is up in the us is whining.
But wouldn't that be the purpose from the inception for a search engine provider to market its own services in the first place? Correct me if I'm wrong, but self-promotion is HOW MONEY IS MADE. And unless a competitor is offering Google more money than it would make from its own services in order to slant search results, I see this as pretty much a non-issue, in the same sense that you don't see one car dealership recommending the services of a competing dealership. That's now how this shit works in the real world. If this somehow upsets a competitor, then the competitor should be building a better product if they hope to compete and come out on top. If EU is actually going to so fine Google for promoting its own services... that it provides... FOR FREE... then perhaps they should also start going after companies that design products on store shelves that are too eye catching or colorful, and specifically targeting those companies AND corporations that allow these colorful, fancy (and sometimes superior quality) products to be placed at eye level in the supermarket.
I'm seeing the implications here. I think a reasonable percent is 1250% tax on financial transactions. That would give everyone a million euro a MONTH. That should be enough for even the poor to live on.
Isn't this kind of like asking the concierge for a dinner suggestion and being referred to a restaurant in the hotel rather than outside? ... I have a pretty good idea in advance what they are going to say.
If I ask someone who runs a landscaping company who I should get to mow my lawn
Ouch
Most of the smaller traders in the markets will disappear,
Most small traders already pay a premium that is greater than 0.5%
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
If you are arguing that a financial transaction tax would crash the economy, then that is a stupid way to do it.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
It's not blocking foreign businesses. Don't do bad things and you don't get to pay fines.
How can Maquest compete when Google is shoving their maps right into their monopoly search?
Why would I care as a user? I want convenient search, and Google gives me just that.
Did you miss the note?
It was an analogy, the US uses "patent infringements" to block out foreign companies and protect domestic (see good old American Apple vs that evil Korean Samsung) while the EU uses "antitrust" to protect small European firms from the big evil Americans delivering highly integrated products.
> It's not blocking foreign businesses. Don't do bad things and you don't get to pay fines. So if I own a restaurant I should promote the menu of the restaurant across the street to avoid antitrust cases?
As the curator of Greece is Goldman Sachs, I don't think any money will really go to Greece.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Analogies are a bad debating tool. They sometimes work but they are not often logically sound.
If you really want to have a restaurant analogy in this case you should frame it like this. A restaurant that has 95% of business already, already has you as an existing customer for an unrelated product requires you to walk through their restaurant to a small door in the back that allows you access to the town's other restaurants. Their undue weight is approaching monopoly in that their inertia allows them to obscure competitors.
If you're not engaged in monopolistic practises then of course you will not be deemed anti-competitive. A monopoly does not serve the consumer.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Exactly. Google couldn't get Facebook to play, so they took it upon themselves to provide a better user experience.
Is that the new way to say "violate users' privacy even further"? Gotta love the euphemism.
Because within a nation the governments power(within the limitations set by the population in case of democracies) is absolute, they can write pretty much whatever laws they want and thus impose whatever fines they want. As a company you can either choose to adhere to the rules and regulations set by the local government or you can choose to not do business within their borders. The EU is a pretty sizable market so everyone wants to do business there
Also the point of these fines is that they have to hurt more than what the corporation gain from breaking the regulations or they are powerless. Also your complaint about it being just another way to block foreign business simply isn't true, so far the biggest fines handed out to a corporation by the Commission was to a European based company and even by frequency the Commission fines a lot more European based corporations than it does foreign ones.
The original reason for fines being on the global revenue was so that the Commission could fine European countries for misbehaving when doing business elsewhere.
Personally I think it's entirely fair because foreign corporations can always choose not to do business within the EU and thus avoid the regulations if they don't like them, of course that would hurt more than paying the fines...
By EU standards Google don't need to have a monopoly to be covered by antitrust legislation, they just has to have a dominant market position(the lowest market share so far that has been found to be dominant was 39.7%) and Google certainly has at least that in search, thus they are required to follow EU antitrust legislation.
When said company main service is directing others to websites and also has monopoly of the market. Yes it is news and is against business rules in Europe.
Also the point of these fines is that they have to hurt more than what the corporation gain from breaking the regulations or they are powerless.
It's worth noting that it hurts the foreign company more than the local because there is less relevant business to absorb the fine. For example, if Google were solely an EU company, it might be worth it to pay the fine, keep doing business as usual, and just bribe the appropriate regulators to prevent the issue coming up in the future.
and even by frequency the Commission fines a lot more European based corporations than it does foreign ones.
Or further evidence that the policy helps exclude foreign businesses from the EU market.
If i want the best service, not google service that is important and as a user i do care.
You can argue that google is the best service but that is beyond the point, for me it might not be. Also I'm obscuring my competitor because i have monopoly on which streets everyone walks. That is not permitted in EU.
It happened with MS and IE, it will probably happen again against google.
I already noted that one can end up paying the same large fine even if one has only a small fraction of its business in the EU. That's a very effective block of foreign business.
Since when 95% of search market share isn't a monopoly?
You are wrong, Google most definitely have a dominant market share in search which is what matters in EU antitrust legislation.
Therefore Google is forbidden from using that advantage in other markets such as map services, advertisement or whatever else they can think of.
Let them slowly slide back into the 1950's. They've decided that the remedy for socialism is Stalinism. Fine. Go do that.
Thats not the issue, sure users can switch search engines of course but companies competing with Google cannot choose what search engines the users go to and hence they are competing at a disadvantage against Google if Google promotes it's competing service in the search and since Google has a dominant market share such a behavior is prohibited business behavior withing the EU.
No if Google tells the EU to fuck off then the EU is going to start seizing Google assets both within EU and wherever else they can get project influence and eventually start issuing international arrest warrants for top Google executives(and arrest any Google executives that enter EU), simply put they are going to make life VERY difficult for Google.
So what you're saying is that local company is pretty much forced to pay the fine, while a foreign company has leverage to avoid it if it's not worth it to their business, and so the fine is worst for the foreign? That makes no sense.
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I worked out that a Europe wide 0.5% financial transaction tax would be enough to pay an unconditional base income of 400euro/month to every single person living in Europe with money to spare. ...just saying.
More to the point, a 5% tax would let everyone have 4000 euros a month, which would be a comfortable income for most people.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you do that, you'll simply end most of the financial transactions that can be taxed
You almost make it sound like that's a bad thing. The whole point is that most of the "trading" activity is socially and economically useless. Personally, I'd just go for punishingly high rates of tax (90%+) for anyone who basically makes money out of gambling
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And 1% would give everybody a monthly income of 800. And why stop there? A 25% tax would give everybody 20,000 euro a MONTH and everybody will be filthy rich and nobody will have to work ever again. You, Sir, are a genius!
Sounds fair enough to me. Not all of us regard the redistribution of wealth as a bad thing.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
VAT is different. VAT gets refunded for the vast majority of payments.
Only the final sale to the consumer actually ends up having VAT. All the (hundreds) of purchases that preceded that final purchase have their VAT refunded.
VAT doesn't get refunded (at least in the UK) if you're offering VAT exempt financial service products.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Company shows its own free products before those of the competition.
Film at 11.
So Microsoft were fine pushing their free Internet Explorer in order to wipe out Netscape after all? Just checking.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As the curator of Greece is Goldman Sachs, I don't think any money will really go to Greece.
Greece would be a lot better off now, and would have been a lot better off for the last sixty years, if the Germans had been forced to return all the wealth the Nazis looted from them in WW2.
Listen, don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I've never seen Coke plug Pepsi on their cans either! It's their product! of course they're not going to plug their competition! They're not some universal utility thing that everyone has a right to. Their search engine and advertising are 100% owned and created by them so they can remove their competition from it all they want.
I'll be a bit extreme here, but I can't see the problem when a company promotes its services better than those of the competition. I would go to such an extent to say it's my obligation to promote my offerings better than others'. I see two was to deal with this: i). force each ad every search provider to not promote their own services at all, or ii). let all search providers promore their own services as they see fit. For me both would be acceptable, but doing these investigations over and over again is just a waste of time and resources, and our [EU] taxes.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Not necessarily, for two reasons.
Firstly, you don't have a monopoly on a scale the EU cares about (usually cross-state, unless there's a really specific market).
Secondly, you're not (on the facts) abusing that position in an anti-competitive way.
In Google's case, the EC is arguing (or has found, can't remember what stage this is at and can't be bothered to RTFA, but did participate a lively discussion at the UK Parliament over this issue, and chatted with one of the people involved in the original complaint) that Google:
(a) has a dominant position in the search engine market in the EU (something like 90%; far higher than in the US, iirc).
(b) has abused this position to promote its other services (such as maps, shopping, videos etc.) by using a separate algorithm for ranking *its* services over other ones.
Thus you have an abuse of a dominant position, contrary to EU Competition law (assuming that the abuse is causing a negative effect on consumers; I have a feeling the EC's case might fall down there).
Whether or not the EC is right is another matter.
Some quotes from the article (emphasis mine):
"Europe's competition watchdog is considering formal proceedings against Google..."
"Talks with the Internet giant about concessions it will make to settle the case are still dragging on..."
"Google offered some concessions to the European Commission in July..."
This process has been going on for a couple of years now, with the EC investigating the matter, discussing things with Google (and the complainants), talking things over and so on. All they are doing now (according to the latest statement from the Commissioner) is finally considering bringing a case. They would still have to win the case to be able to fine Google. And that could take years (the MS investigation was launched in 1993, and there was another appeal judgment in June this year).
As for the Samsung verdicts; those are somewhat different due to being civil cases (brought mainly by Apple, rather than public cases brought by the EC). Out of interest, a quick check on Wikipedia suggests that the results so far are as follows:
Germany: Apple won 2 cases, Samsung won 2 more
The Netherlands: Apple won initially, but it seems Samsung won on appeal
England and Wales: Samsung won (pending appeal - Apple also lost its case against HTC, covering similar patents)
Australia: Apple won an interim injunction, which was overturned pending the full trial.
Japan: Samsung won
South Korea: Apple and Samsung both lost
Google is accused of using its search service to direct users to its own services and to reduce the visibility of competing websites and services.
So google is considered to be in the wrong because they don't promote their competition on their results. Tell me, do you typically see Burger King advertisements at McDonalds?
Did you think US is the only country that believes its laws apply worldwide and it knows no jurisdiction? Well, think again.
Seems mad. Google might want to advertise their services so they seek out the most successful on line advertiser which is hmmmm Google? So they place their adds with them self and charge the going rate for advertising your own products which is nothing; meanwhile the users are completely able to go use a different search because unlike the world of OS or proprietary office formats the users aren't locked in?
I don't get it unless members of the EU Commission all happen to be iPad users:-)
while a foreign company has leverage to avoid it if it's not worth it to their business
In other words, a means to chase foreign companies out of EU markets. The "leverage" to run like a whipped dog is not that advantageous to foreign firms.
Did you think US is the only country that believes its laws apply worldwide and it knows no jurisdiction?
Why would I think that? Maybe I'm not the one who needs to think again.
EU anticompetition laws are quite complex and powerful, and they work (as Microsoft about that), but I have little doubts that I can fully see Google's fault here. It's one thing to promote yourself ahead of your clients - it's not forbidden. There is one slippery slope though and it will be interesting to see result of this investigation, which I trust more than "IT analysists".
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!