It looks like Google’s anti-trust case launched by the European Commission may appear bigger than the one which cost Microsoft over €2.2bn. Joaquín Almunia, the EC’s competition commissioner, has dramatically changed his position and told the European Parliament that unless Google altered its offer to settle complaints, the company would face a “statement of objections”. The latter is the formal path towards a fine which could equate to 10% of the company’s global revenue ($6bn). When compared with Microsoft, it should be noted that the latter was investigated by the European Commission for 16 years – this is 4 times as much as the Google is being investigated, but there were less problems with Microsoft than there are with Google. Apparently, Almunia made a reversal from his position before a few months ago, when he was poised to accept Google’s 3rd set of proposals to settle the case, formally opened back in 2010. A number of Google rivals, including Microsoft, welcomed the change in outlook. The search giant controls over 90% of the online search market in the region, which is much more than in the US where it was cleared by the FTC last year of favoring its own searches to the detriment of consumers. The Federal Trade Commission said that any such favoring helped users. So, the intention of the competition commissioner to accept Google’s proposals disappeared over the summer after facing outspoken opposition from French and German politicians and other groups. Officially it was told that his change of position was due to some new factual evidence about the impact on rivals of the proposals. Moreover, Joaquín Almunia added that the EC competition group could also launch an investigation into preferential positioning for Google in its Android platform – the latter is the most popular smartphone operating system in Europe and the rest of the world. He said another investigation of Google can be started for the possible diversion of broadband traffic towards its services which are not search services. However, this remark was made to refer to the positioning of YouTube and Google+ in search results. In response, Google claimed that its representatives continue to work with the European Commission in order to find ways to resolve their concerns. Joaquín Almunia leaves office next month, and Google inquiries will be handed to Margrethe Vestager. This past summer, Almunia said that a number of companies, including European publishers, an advertising platform, a telecoms company and an association of picture industries and photo libraries, had complained about the search giant taking advantage of its dominance in order to promote its own services: YouTube and the Google+ network. The latest news about the case was that Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corporation, had also complained to the European Commission about Google’s dominance of the market.
