Google will be forced to change the way its search results are presented
in Europe or face antitrust charges for "diverting traffic" to its own
services, The Financial Times reported the European Union's antitrust
chief as saying.
The EU's competition commissioner, Joaquin Almunia,
told the newspaper in an interview published on Friday that he intends
to prevent Google from allegedly distorting choices for consumers and
taking business from rivals.
"We are still investigating, but my
conviction is are diverting traffic," the newspaper quoted him as
saying, referring to Google's preferential treatment of its own vertical
search services.
"They are monetizing 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," he said.
The EU issued Google an ultimatum on
December 18, giving it a month to come up with detailed proposals to
resolved a two-year investigation into complaints that it used its power
to block rivals such as Microsoft.
Google has been the center of a
two-year investigation by the EU based on complaints that Google
unfairly favored its services over its rivals in search results and that
it may have copied material from travel and restaurant websites without
permission.
Almunia told the newspaper that his concern was "the
way they present their own services" and that he was "not discussing the
algorithm" the top-secret formula behind Google's search engine.
The
FT said this suggested one facet of the solution would be labeling when
Google's in-house services such as shopping comparison information -
are artificially given higher billing than rivals, although other
changes would likely apply to how Google services are displayed within
general search engines.
He also said that while Google showed a
more constructive approach at a meeting in December, he warned that he
would be "obliged" to issue formal charges if its proposal was
unsatisfactory.
Google spokesman Al Verney said: "We continue to work cooperatively with the commission."
Divergence from US
Almunia's
spokesman confirmed the quotes in the FT but said they did not add a
new position on behalf of the European Commission.
"He was
highlighting that we think the preferential treatment may lead to
diversion of traffic, which we consider anticompetitive. That's a basic
concern we have as we explained last May," the spokesman, Antoine
Colombani, told Reuters.
The EU's stance on Google marks a sharply
different approach to that of U.S regulators, who last week ended their
investigation into the company and concluded that it had not
manipulated its Web search results to hurt rivals, a verdict which
disappointed its rivals.
Almunia told the FT that the EU's rare
divergence with the U.S. was due to the differing legal standards for
abuse of dominance, as well as Google's stronger position in Europe
where it handles more than 90 percent of searches.
He also
dismissed the idea that an intervention would cause a rift with the US
and trigger outrage at a European meddling with a US corporate giant.
He
said, "I have never received a single message coming from the other
side of the Atlantic saying, 'hey, what are you doing?' Everyone knows
this is global."
Almunia said a separate a less advanced probe
into Google's Android's operating system will remain open and outside
the settlement.
© Thomson Reuters 2012