EU investigates Google

THE MUCH AWAITED EU anti-trust investigation of the search outfit Google has been launched.

The European Commission said in a press release that it had opened a formal inquiry into Google following claims of unfavourable treatment from rival search engine companies.

The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services, which provide price comparisons.

Google is alleged to have given preferential placement to the results of its own search services in order to shut out competing services. The Commission will also look into allegations that Google lowered the 'Quality Score' for sponsored links of competing vertical search services. The Quality Score is one of the factors that determine the price paid to Google by advertisers.

While there is no legal deadline for the inquiry, it should take about six months to carry out.

The Commission's probe will also look at allegations that Google imposes exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their web sites.

Other charges include claims that Google placed restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms.

Rivals have been moaning about Google using its huge market share as a weapon for ages so it was only a matter of time before the EU reacted.

Google insists that there is a lot of competition and that it competes with Amazon and Ebay for retail search enquiries, and social networking groups such as Facebook and Twitter were becoming an increasingly important source of sharing links. µ