DailyTech - EU Doesn't Plan to Go Easy on Google (Like the FTC)

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Internet EU Doesn't Plan to Go Easy on Google (Like the FTC)
Tiffany Kaiser - January 11, 2013 9:36 AM

21 comment(s) - last by Aloonatic.. on Jan 24 at 1:25 PM

(Source: rnw.nl)

Europe's antitrust chief accused Google of diverting traffic

Google may have gotten off pretty easy with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) earlier this month, but it doesn't look like the European antitrust authorities will let Google go with a warning and a slap on the wrist.

Joaquin Almunia, Europe's antitrust chief, recently said that Google is providing search results that promote its own services instead of fairly showing those of competitors.

"We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google] are diverting traffic," said Almunia. "They are monetising this kind of business, the strong position they have in the general search market and this is not only a dominant position, I think -- I fear -- there is an abuse of this dominant position."

Almunia added that he agreed with the FTC's recent decision to force Google to change its business practices, but the EU's punishment at the investigation's conclusion will "not be weaker."

Google could have to pay the EU a fine as high as 10 percent of its global annual turnover, which would be about $3.79 billion.

Earlier this month, Google managed to escape a nearly two-year U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation without paying any fines. Instead of paying fines, the FTC made Google promise that it would stop scraping reviews and information from other websites, stop requesting sales bans when suing companies for patent infringement and allow advertisers to export data in order to evaluate advertising campaigns.

The decision to not fine Google after such a long investigation surprised many rival companies like Microsoft and Nextag, who believe Google won't learn its lesson unless there are severe consequences.

Source: ZDNet

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RE: I don't get it

By vXv on 1/11/2013 4:51:20 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
I agree though that the EU appears to have found a blank check in American businesses. It seems the EU is very willing to leverage it and extort money only to prop up some of their failing economies.

The EU's economy is by GDP the biggest in the world ... the fines from the antitrust cases are hardly going to affect it in any way.

So this isn't really the reason why there are doing it.

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RE: I don't get it

By michael67 on 1/12/2013 1:49:22 PM , Rating: 1

Whats even worse, the article is totally off base.

To summon op the quote of a EU spokes person.

As on the moment the EU is in heavy negotiations with Google, and tho Google is seen as a hard negotiator, but other then MS, Google is constructive in its negotiations and tries to find a solution ware both parties can live whit!

MS got a reasonable fine for not following EU regulations, just as any EU company would get braking US rules.

Only MS was thinking, hey we are special and the rules don't count for us, EU gave a $5~600b fine, and MS capt ignoring EU ruling, they got a new fine, and then they had to pay a x amount everyday MS did not follow the ruling.
The US calls it EU greed, the EU calls it MS stupidity for not listening what local law said it has to do.

Intel came of cheap imho as a higher fine would bin more appropriate, and the settlement between Intel and AMD was a complete joke, as imho AMD deserved about 10x it got.

And Intel is now market leader by just outspending AMD by buying market share.

Stop calling the EU greedy, and demand your own FTC to have more of a backbone, and defend your interest, instead of Google's!

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