Google defends search biz as EU competition market test nears end

Google has defended its search business in its first major public statement in months about the European Commission's competition probe of the company. The move comes just days before a market test of Google's offer to Brussels' anti-trust Commissioner Joaquin Almunia is concluded. The Register understands that the vast …

[Anonymous Coward]

Sanctions are the wrong way to go

Sanctions should only imposed when a clear induction of wrong doing is done before the offence is caused.

Google is very much in the same position as Microsoft, one rule for them and another for the rest. Did Google leverage its dominant position to ensure its other products succeed? Yes. Do other companies without a dominant position use the same tactics? Of course.

If the practice is illegal it should be illegal for all parties irrespective of performance otherwise you're stating its illegal to be successful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because only Google promote their products (apparently)

Microsoft, you lying scumbags....

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/06/19/google-and-bing-have-a-little-disagreement-about-the-xbox-one/

My tests indicate Google only promote their services which are the best services (i.e. maps), most of their other offerings search results order seem to be broadly linked to the popularity of that product.

[WibbleMe]

Competition

A non US based company needs to be introduced Google, Bing, Yahoo, its like choosing the same drink with different containers

[ratfox]

So what would make them happy?

It was always obvious that the competitors were going to reject the proposal. So far, I have not heard any constructive proposal of what they think Google should do. IIRC, they asked for "clear guarantees" that Google would "stop pushing it own products" in the search results. That is practically impossible, unless Google made public its ranking algorithm; which it would most certainly never do.

It is true that Google having 90% market share makes it hard for others to compete, but nobody seems to have any feasible idea of how this could be fixed. Even the EC does not seem able to propose anything, other than telling them to "improve their proposals" somehow.