European Commission is all set to launch an antitrust investigation on Google based on allegations that Google had abused its dominant position in online search for its own favor. Complaints by firms including the price comparison site Foundem and legal search engine ejustice.fr will be considered.
The investigation covers complaints raised by other search engine service providers about the unfavorable treatment of their services in Google’s unpaid and sponsored search results and the preference given to Google’s own services in search results.
The probe also investigates whether Google had imposed exclusivity obligations on advertising partners and whether Google’s method of generating unpaid results adversely affects the rankings of vertical search services.
In addition, EC also looks into “suspected restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms”, reports BBC.
Google however denies the allegations and said that it would work with the Commission to address the concerns being raised.
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