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European Union building

Last April, the European Spousal relationship appear it would investigate Google for declared anticompetitive deportment and abuse of power. The search behemothic and Android developer fired dorsum today, in a legal response of more than one hundred pages. While that written report is confidential, Ken Walker, Google'due south general council and a senior vice-president, has written a blog post detailing how Google sees the situation and what the company thinks of the EU'southward charges.

Google'due south response makes it articulate that the company believes the Eu is wrong on all counts. Information technology argues that its ain research and data shows that paid display of ads from specific merchants does not harm other services listed on Google. Information technology claims to have information "to rebut claims that our advertisement displays and specialized organic results harmed contest by preventing shopping aggregators from reaching consumers." And information technology argues that the Eu has failed to consider the impact of Amazon and eBay equally competitors for Google itself.

The Google Shopping Unit is one feature other companies are unhappy about.

The Google Shopping Unit of measurement is i feature other companies are unhappy almost.

One thing Walker doesn't touch on, nonetheless, is that anti-trust police is very dissimilar in the EU compared with the United states of america. In the US, to testify that a monopoly is illegal, you lot have to provide evidence of consumer harm. This brake doesn't exist in the European Wedlock; an corruption of monopolistic power can be constitute to exist if one company takes actions that impairment a competitor unjustly, even if there is no direct testify that consumers were themselves harmed. Some would contend that this represents an unfair brake on business organisation, while others experience it'southward actually a way of safeguarding consumer preference and selection by ensuring that smaller companies don't face unfair competition.

Either style, Walker appears to somewhat contradict himself. Starting time, he states that Google's EU results do not harm competition past changing results. So, later, he writes: "Moreover, the ways people search for, compare, and buy products are rapidly evolving. Users on desktop and mobile devices often want to go directly to trusted merchants who accept established an online presence."

I'm not sure you can have this both means. You tin can argue Google's results don't touch on other aggregators, or you can debate Google provides a service people want by pairing them immediately with a trusted political party. This sounds similar Google wanting to swallow its cake and take it too. The meat of this case is over whether Google unfairly prioritizes its ain services and links. Multiple firms have joined in calling for an investigation of Google'due south actions, with participants ranging from Microsoft (for obvious reasons) to organizations like Getty Images. The specifics of each complaint vary, merely the general theme is the same.

Google defends these actions as necessary. Walker writes: "In providing results for people interested in shopping, we knew we needed to become beyond the erstwhile-fashioned 'x blue links' model to proceed up with our competitors and meliorate serve our users and advertisers. We adult new ways to organize and rank production information and to present it to users in useful formats in search and ads. In 2022, every bit function of that effort, in addition to our traditional ads, we introduced the Google Shopping Unit equally a new advertizement format."

Google, essentially, is arguing that operating its own shopping comparison cost tool is a simple response to how consumers behave. The European union is arguing that by setting up its ain comparison tools, Google has moved from providing search results to influencing them to ameliorate serve its own fiscal ends and to confer an unfair advantage on certain companies it works with. The EU has the authority to fine Google upward to $half-dozen.7 billion for these actions but nigh certainly wouldn't. The $1.45 billion case against Intel was the largest fine ever levied in the European Spousal relationship'due south history.

The EU has appear that it is likewise looking into Android, but today's weblog post did not accost any of the concerns effectually that operating organization.