The European Commission on Wednesday formally accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the online search market, and launched a new investigation into alleged anti-competitive practices regarding its Android operating system (OS).
Brussels has sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to the Internet giant claiming that it systematically favours results from its shopping comparison service, called Google Shopping, in its general search listings over results from rival shopping comparison services. The watchdog claims that this infringes EU antitrust rules because it stifles competition and harms consumers.
"The Commission’s objective is to apply EU antitrust rules to ensure that companies operating in Europe, wherever they may be based, do not artificially deny European consumers as wide a choice as possible or stifle innovation," said EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in a statement.
"In the case of Google I am concerned that the company has given an unfair advantage to its own comparison shopping service, in breach of EU antitrust rules," she said, which means that end users might not necessarily see the search results that are most relevant to them.
Google has rejected the accusations.
"While Google may be the most used search engine, people can now find and access information in numerous different ways – and allegations of harm, for consumers and competitors, have proved to be wide of the mark," said Amit Singhal, s enior vice president of Google Search, in a statement.
He argued that "there’s a ton of competition" in shopping comparison services, listing Amazon and eBay as particularly big hitters, and claimed that Google Shopping has not harmed the competition.
"We respectfully but strongly disagree with the need to issue a Statement of Objections and look forward to making our case over the weeks ahead," Singhal said.
The EU launched an investigation into Google’s search practices in 2010 after a raft of companies accused it of unfairly favouring its own services in its search results over those of its rivals. In March 2013, it concluded that some of Google’s business practices violated European antitrust rules.
In the intervening years, Google has made a number of concessions in a bid to reach a settlement. It offered to display results from three competing specialised search services in the same way it displays its own, and to relax certain conditions it imposes on search advertising contracts, among others. However, Wednesday’s SO confirms that these concessions have fallen short of what Brussels deems adequate.
The situation could get worse still for Google after the EU launched a new investigation into claims of anti-competitive practices regarding Android.
The Commission seeks to establish whether Google has hindered competition in the market for mobile operating systems, applications and services by requiring or incentivising device makers to exclusively pre-install its own apps and services.
It will also investigate whether Google has harmed competition by preventing OEMs from developing their own versions of Android, and find out if Google has illegally hindered the development of rival applications and services.
"The Commission has informed Google and the national competition authorities that it has opened proceedings in this case," said the EU.
