Google and EU Reach Tentative Settlement in Antitrust Case

AmiMoJo writes "Google has agreed to display competing site's results along side those from its own products in search results. The agreement comes as part of an EU investigation into Google's domination of the search market and its promotion of Google products at the top of each page. The EU has published screenshots (scroll down) showing how the changes will look once rolled out." Part of the deal includes Google avoiding any fines. The appearance changes to search results are minor; Google services in the results are more strongly highlighted as such, and links to alternative services are provided (e.g. Yelp for Google Local results). Less visible are the major changes: third parties will be able to opt-out of having their data used for specialized Google searches, and "Google proposes no longer to include in its agreements with publishers any written or unwritten obligations that would require them to source online search advertisements exclusively from Google ... [or] to impose obligations that would prevent advertisers from porting or managing search advertising campaigns across competing advertising platforms."

Comments

Nice

[Nerdfest]

Damn nice to see that last part about competing ad platforms. That sort of clause is the sort of thing I would expect Apple to do. It's pretty blatently ant-competitive.

Less Useful

[swv3752]

So while Google has to stop anti-competitive practices, they also have to make there web pages less useful. Brilliant.

Alternatives vs choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Will I get the choice to turn alternatives off, should I choose to not see them?