European Commission
The love between Google and European Commission seems today taken to a new level as with Google addressing growing concerns over its abusing market leader position in Web Search, the Commission is asking for feedback on new proposals, in which the search giant will agreed on to show prominent links from rival services in its search results for next five years.
The Commission counts on number of things, with even highlighting the problems with which the Google used content from its rival without their any prior permission. But, with this proposed plan, the company now have to offer display links from three rival search services, likely of Bing, Yahoo in close to its own services.
“The Commission is concerned that the practice of using third-party content to promote Google’s own services may reduce competitors’ incentives to invest in the creation of original content for the benefit of internet users.” a memo by the Commission reads.
“Indeed, if users know that Google’s specialised search services contain all the relevant information that is posted on the web, their incentives to visit other sites which contain only a part of that information will be significantly reduced, even if these were the sites from which that information originates.”
“If following the market test, the commitments form the basis for a satisfactory solution to the Commission’s competition concerns, the Commission may make them legally binding on Google,” the Commission added. “Such a decision does not conclude that there is an infringement of EU antitrust rules, but would legally bind Google to respect the commitments offered.”
