Google Rejects EU Antitrust Charges, Says Evidence is Lacking (reuters.com)

Google said Thursday it is rejecting accusations made by European Union that it abuses its dominant position with its shopping and advertising services, ramping up its fight back against the bloc's regulators. "The Commission's revised case still rests on a theory that doesn't fit the reality of how most people shop online," said Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, in a blog post. From a report on Reuters: "We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information we received. On the contrary, we improved it. That isn't 'favoring' -- that's listening to our customers," Walker said. His comments came as the company formally replied to the two charges, one of which it received in April last year and the other in July this year, earlier on Thursday.The official blog post here. Further reporting on Bloomberg.

Comments

Google monopoly?

[unixisc]

If Google is a monopoly, what could it possibly have a monopoly on?

Search engines? There is Bing, DuckDuckGo, Amazon and whatever Apple has underpinning its search

Android? Yeah, there's Android, but there is also Cyanogen, and some other Linux based wannabe phone OSs, like FireFox OS, Tizen. And if one looks beyond that, there is Apple, and even Microsoft.

Phones? Yeah, you may have the Nexus and Pixel, but there is Samsung, LG, Sony and a few others, notably Chinese. And again, there are iPhones, Lumias, Blu, and so on.

And if they're talking shopping, as the above blurb suggests, I never use Google to search. It's almost always Amazon, and on a few occasions, I've ordered things online directly from store sites like BB&B, when the thing I wanted wasn't available in stores.

Re:Google monopoly?

[penix1]

And what exactly do you think anti-trust laws cover?

Antitrust laws cover more than just monopolies. It covers collusion and price fixing as well (usually in the same charge since it is almost impossible to have price fixing without collusion). It isn't illegal to be a monopoly. What is illegal is abuse of that monopoly. Also, it isn't required for a business to have an absolute monopoly to be considered as a defacto monopoly. It is called "market dominance" and abuse of that dominance has the same effect as if they were a monopoly.