EU Gunning For Google

The American tech giant, which has said it strongly disagrees with Vestager’s complaint about its allegedly anti-competitive behavior, has 10 weeks to respond to the charges.

Vestager, a former deputy prime minister and minister for economic affairs in the Danish government, issued a statement of objections outlining how the firm’s promotion of its own shopping links amounted to an abuse of its dominance in search. She also launched an investigation into whether the way Google bundled apps and services for its Android operating system was unfair.

She said the EU would continue to monitor other activities by Google that its rivals had complained about. Vestager’s charges came after a five-year investigation into the company and marks the start of a formal legal process that could ultimately lead to fines amounting to billions of euros. “If the investigation confirms our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe,” Vestager explained.

The complaints against Google are believed to have come from the likes of Microsoft, Tripadvisor and Streetmap. The complaints included one that said Google placed adverts from its shopping service ahead of others’ links in relevant searches.

The U.S. firm accounts for more than a 90 percent of EU-based web searches. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission investigated similar complaints against Google, but closed the inquiry in 2013 without reaching a formal finding of wrongdoing. The New York Times has pointed out that in the U.S. new businesses and technologies tend to be given much freer rein, unless they are proved to be problematic.

It says that contrasts with the more cautious approach in Europe, where protecting privacy and personal data, and closely supervising business and industry, often take precedence over free-market innovation.