Google Can’t Shake Foundem, “Abuse of Dominance” Charges Still Loom
December 4, 2013
The article titled ‘Fatal Flaws’ in Google’s Revised Search Antitrust Overhaul, Says Foundem on The Register reports that Google has still not made sufficient concessions to the European Union’s demands. Google has been defending itself against allegations of ‘abuse of dominance’ in Europe, an argument which circles around the tendency for search results filtered through Google to often lead to its own services. The latest attempt to reach a deal resulted in Google’s proposals being leaked. The article explains that this new proposal has been found wanting:
“UK-based price comparison site Foundem has long battled against Google’s alleged abuse of dominance in Europe. It is one of the best known complainants in competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia’s long-running investigation into the multinational Google. The company’s co-founders Adam and Shivaun Raff said today the revised proposals “suffer from all the same flaws” as Google’s previous submission to the EC – which was rejected after a formal market test attacked the fundamental weaknesses of that offer.”
Especially attacking the Paid Rival Links addendum to the proposal, the Raffs made it clear that they felt Google was stifling the competition. They even suggested that the Paid Rival Links were assumed to be for show, an outlandish request by Google that could be thrown out in the second proposal in order to show that some concessions had been made. Apparently Google saw things differently.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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