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

How would that work exactly?

[hey!]

So Google sets up an auction in which bidders compete to pay Google the most money. Then Google enters the auction as both the seller and also as a bidder?

Am I missing something here? Or is Google actually proposing something you wouldn't have to be stupid to believe might work?