Google Rivals Quizzed by EU Again After Settlement Stalls

By Aoife White Dec 11, 2014 4:20 AM PT

Google Inc. (GOOGL)’s rivals are being questioned by European Union regulators as the bloc’s new competition chief weighs whether to step up a four-year-old antitrust probe after settlement efforts stalled.
Questions were sent to a number of people involved in Internet maps and travel “in order to get fresh information because it was quite a while” since the EU sought information on online search and advertising, Margrethe Vestager told a press conference in Brussels. The former Danish economy minister said she has “no intentions yet” when asked whether she’d abandon a settlement and send antitrust objections that could lead to fines.
The EU is seeking answers by early January from companies that compete with Google on shopping, maps, travel and other search services, according to people familiar wit
h the case, who asked not to be named because the questionnaires aren’t public. Vestager, who took over as competition commissioner on Nov. 1., said she was planning to meet Google’s opponents in the coming weeks to discuss the case.
The world’s biggest search provider is under mounting pressure in Europe over competition and privacy issues. EU lawmakers last month called for regulators to consider splitting the company if it can’t wrap up the antitrust probe. In the same week, privacy watchdogs criticized the company’s compliance with a court ruling that gave people the right to remove links to some Internet content about them.

Photographer: Freya Ingrid Morales/Bloomberg

Responses are due by early January as the EU’s new antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager,... Read More

Al Verney, a spokesman for Google in Brussels, declined to immediately comment on the questionnaires.

‘Corrective Measures’

European consumers’ organization BEUC received a questionnaire and is concerned about price comparison searches and how results on Google are presented, spokesman John Phelan said in an e-mail. Brussels-based BEUC will meet Vestager this month, he said.
“We need tailored corrective measures which work in this instance and stand for the future,” said Phelan. “Primarily, the recognition of a non-discrimination principle of search results.”
The Mountain View, California-based company has been formally probed by the EU since 2010 over allegations that it abused its market power by promoting its own services above others and deterring advertisers from using other search engines.

Negative Feedback

Google tried to allay EU concerns over the visibility of competing services by offering to display paid-for links to rivals next to its own in boxes it places near search results. Negative feedback from companies that complained, which include Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Expedia Inc. forced the EU to seek a better offer.
Companies were asked by the EU about how many visits their sites receive from Google’s search results and advertisements, how much revenue those visits generate and how much it might cost them in advertising on Google to lure those visits, one of the people said.
Vestager said last month that she wanted to have “all the facts up to date to get it right” on the probe and needed time to decide on next steps.
“The issues at stake in our investigations have a big potential impact on many players, they are multifaceted in complex,” she at the time. “Questions about access to markets that are of vital interest to many players, big and small alike, and that have a significant impact on consumers.”
Vestager’s predecessor, Joaquin Almunia, had sought to finalize a settlement with Google by September. The stalled deal would have seen the EU accept Google’s concessions in return for dropping the probe without levying any fines.