Google to face EU Commission

Google’s market dominance in the search arena has obviously been getting up a few people’s noses. Following a number of complaints, the EU has launched an antitrust probe into Google. Other companies, including price comparison site Foundem and search engine ejustice.fr, have alleged that their search results are being penalised in Google rankings, while the mega-company’s own results are artificially promoted.

The antitrust probe is mainly looking at how Google determines organic search results, with a sideline investigation into the restrictions Google places on advertisers. The instigation of the probe is not meant to imply that Google have done anything wrong, something the internet giant is quick to point out in its reaction to the news: ‘”Since we started, Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry, but there’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the Commission to address any concerns.”

The probe will be conducted by the European Commission’s competition watchdog, which has previously investigated, and upheld complaints against, Microsoft and Intel. Both firms faced heavy fines after previous probes.

However, industry analysts believe this case could be a harder one for the EC to prove, as it relies on the Commission’s interpretation of the highly complex, frequently changing, and usually top-secret, Google algorithm, the equation which determines search engine rankings.

To successfully uphold the charges, the EC will need to find proof in this algorithm or in related e-mail trails that the rankings are knowingly tampered with. Many industry analysts believe this to be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, for the EC to do.