The Anti-trust Saga Continues: European Commission v. Google

1. The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google Inc. has abused a dominant position in online search, in violation of European Union rules (Article 102, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – “TFEU”). On 30 November 2010, the Commission decided to initiate antitrust proceedings in cases COMP/C-3/39.740, COMP/C-3/39.775 & COMP/C-3/39.768 within the meaning of Article 11(6) of Council Regulation No 1/2003 (that the initiation of proceedings relieves the competition authorities of the Member States of their authority to apply the competition rules laid down in Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty) and Article 2(1) of Commission Regulation No 773/2004 (that the Commission can initiate proceedings with a view to adopting at a later stage a decision on substance according to Articles 7-10)
2. The proceedings were opened with a view to adopting a decision in application of Chapter III of Council Regulation No 1/2003 and concern the unfavourable treatment by Google Inc. of competing vertical search service providers in Google’s unpaid and sponsored search results coupled with an alleged preferential placement of Google’s own services. The Commission investigated the alleged imposition of exclusivity obligations by Google on its advertising and distribution partners and suspected restrictions on advertisers as to the portability of campaign data to competing online advertising platforms.
3. In March 2013, the Commission formally informed Google of its preliminary conclusion that the following four types of business practices by Google may violate EU antitrust rules prohibiting the abuse of a dominant position (Article 102, TFEU):
   1. The favourable treatment, within Google’s web search results, of links to Google’s own specialised web search services as compared to links to competing specialised web search services (i.e. services allowing users to search for specific categories of information such as restaurants, hotels or products);
   2. The use by Google without consent of original content from third party web sites in its own specialised web search services;
   3. Agreements that oblige third party web sites (“publishers”) to obtain all or most of their online search advertisements from Google; and
   4. Contractual restrictions on the transferability of online search advertising campaigns to rival search advertising platforms and the management of such campaigns across Google’s Adwords and rival search advertising platforms.
4. The Commission considered at this stage that these practices could harm consumers by reducing choice and stifling innovation in the fields of specialised search services and online search advertising.

Google’s reply:[Read more…]

Aprajita Singh, Second Year, Amity Law School, GGSIPU. She can be contacted at aprajita38@gmail.com