Google makes 'proposal' to Europe on antitrust concerns

Google has submitted what it described as a "proposal" to antitrust officials in Brussels that the search giant said addresses the "abuse of dominance" claims outlined by competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia in May this year. The company, which has been investigated by the EC since November 2010 over allegations that it …

[Anonymous Coward]

A proposal? Can you hear the laughter?

[Paul Shirley]

Not yet but I can almost hear the outraged squealing the self serving alliance of Google enemies and shady search companies are about to emit ;)

[theamoeba]

Perhaps Google should block all traffic from Europe...

[Droid on Droid]

That's a great idea. Everyone in Europe will just use different search engines and Google wont have to worry about making money from European Ads! What next, replace Google search in Android with Bing?

[Guillermo Lo Coco]

Proposal? I mean.. the should show "conclusions".

Smith: Look EU, we are dominat because Hotmail, m$, yahoo and many others have crappy unnatractive webpages full of bloatware. They let us win. We only did a good job, making many opensource contributions to the community when Apple,BB,M$,Yahoo make things in oposite directions. Look what happend to Yahoo messenger or hotsh_t-messenger? they dont use XMPP, so cant communicate with other IM services. They loose.

His webmail clients was in html1.0, reloading long static pages, and what happend next? Google&FF&W3C team improve the web and make better solutions for webApps which by M$ never was agree, because WebApp is enemy of an OS like MS, or crappy bad &notefficient programed apps in Win.

By all of this and much more, Google win, and EU, instead, should help. And if they dont like it, Ok, drop all androids and pay for iphone, useless S40, Ancient-S60 or verycapped-mobileoperator-friendly-Blackberrys.

[Majid]

I need to remember this one, the next time when I get a speeding ticket.

Hey, I will make a proposal to remedy the situation, lets say I will drive 10 km/h under the speed limit 5 times, this will then offset my 50 km/h over the speed limit at the time you caught me..

So that will make us even check? I can even cut you a deal and do that 6 times, so in the end you will end up with a 10 km/h benefit!!

You see I am a nice guy.. I just cut you in on a deal you cant refuse..

right.......

[Ole Juul]

The world's largest ad broker

In its general search results, Google displays links to its own vertical search services differently than it does for links to competitors.

The link quotes Almunia as detailing three more major issues. Offering Google a chance to find a solution is a reasonable approach rather than just coming up with a huge fine. If Google disagrees with the allegations they would probably be better served by saying why. Playing dumb does not make them look particularly intelligent in this matter.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: The world's largest ad broker

One possible reply will be digging up earlier complaints that Google *weren't sufficiently differentiating* their own search results, which I believe involved some of the same 'Fairsearch' pond scum. It would seem the only acceptable result to Microsofts accomplices in Fairsearch is Google getting out of the search biz, except for when freeloaders can get a free ride!

[Justin Clements]

Ermmm....

If Google are unable to see that they are being anti-competitive (as per Schmidt's response) in the eyes of the EU (and just about everyone else), then how they are coming up with a "proposal" makes next to no sense.

You cannot propose to remedy a situation if you are unable to see the situation in the first place.

[Graham Marsden]

'what it described as a "proposal"'

Are you sure it wasn't "An offer they couldn't refuse"??

[chipxtreme]

When I took my car to a main dealer they recommend I buy genuine parts from them. I didn't have to buy those genuine parts and could go to local car parts dealer and buy OEM parts. Surely the garage weren't being anti competitive or should they face the same fate?

[Ole Juul]

Your garage is not a search engine.

Surely the garage weren't being anti competitive

They don't have Google's market dominance. Besides, I doubt they claim to be unbiased.

The problem is that Google is in a dominant position and have two separate businesses going at the same time.