Google Offers To Treat Rivals Equally Via Auction (reuters.com)

Google has offered to display rival comparison shopping sites via an auction, as it aims to stave off further EU antitrust fines, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters. From a report: Google is under pressure to come up with a big initiative to level the playing field in comparison shopping, but its proposal was roundly criticized by competitors as inadequate, the sources said. EU enforcers see the antitrust case as a benchmark for investigations into other areas dominated by the U.S. search giant such as travel and online mapping. Google has already been fined a record 2.4 billion euros ($2.9 bln) by the European Commission for favoring its own service, and could face millions of euros in fresh fines if it fails to treat rivals and its own service equally.

Comments

Thanks EU

[Anonymous Coward]

For nothing. Google's rivals suck. That is why we don't use them. But thanks for forcing the sucky option upon us.

Expected Outcomes

[Jodka]

from the /. summary:

Google has offered to display rival comparison shopping sites via an auction..but its proposal was roundly criticized by competitors as inadequate.

Well of course they did; Google's European competitors do not want a level playing field, they want one tilted for themselves. Because "EU enforcers" are biased in support of EU companies, these competitors know that they can achieve a better settlement for themselves than one balanced and so are rejecting the offer of a neutral process.

Regulatory outcomes depend on who holds political and financial influence over and among regulatory bodies as well as the ideology of the regulators. (See: regulatory capture). In Europe, Google is a foreign company, and the "EU First" attitude and internal EU political influence will prevail over principals of law and even-handedness.