Joachin Alumnia, the antitrust commissioner in the European Commission, has today finally given his final verdict on an antitrust investigation against Google, which has been going on since 2004: it has given the company the all-clear and will now move forward on implementing remedies. But no sooner did the decision get made public than Google’s competitors have weighed in with a response.
“This thing is a disgrace,” one told TechCrunch. He points out that the settlement won’t be made public before the deal is sealed. “So much for transparency.
“If Commissioner Almunia thought he got a good deal, he would get it vetted by experts and not only take Eric Schmidt’s word for it. But this deal will only be published after the deal is done. So the European Competition Commissioner should take some words of wisdom to heart that Eric Schmidt himself gave once to the world: ‘If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.’” There are some 12 companies involved in the case against Google and include large companies like Microsoft, Expedia and others.
Almunia has a different opinion. “I believe Google’s proposals are capable of addressing the concerns. so we are moving forward on commitments,” he told an audience in Brussels today.
At issue were four types of business practices that raised concerns. The first two related to specialised search services around particular verticals like travel or hotels. In essence Google was displaying its own results in a more prominent manner than competitors. The other two complaints relate to online advertising and pressures that Google may have been placing on them to use Google ads.
Almunia said that while he could have taken either the negotiation or adversarial routes, he chose the former. “The purpose of enforcement should be allowed to let consumers benefit as soon as possible,” he said, and this would not have been possible with the protracted timeframe of an adversarial approach.
The solution is based on the third proposal from Google, after the previous two were rejected for not being strong enough.
Almunia stressed that this is not the end of the Google story. There is first the case of implementing this decision, but then there are also now ongoing investigations into other areas. The biggest one is a look at antitrust practices around the Android operating system, which is the largest smartphone platform in the world and controlled by Google.
The provisions cover online and mobile advertising, as well as search results for both platforms.
More to come.
Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/1nSKl1m
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