The allegations of abuse of dominance released Wednesday by the European Commission against internet giant Google contrasted with the position of Washington, who left a similar investigation two years ago, citing lack of evidence.
In early 2013, the agency that regulates competition in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), closed its investigation in exchange for commitments of good conduct from Google, including the cessation of what was then termed ” most troubling practices. “
That year, Google agreed to end restrictions related to its platform AdWords online advertising, which prevented advertisers to a parallel campaign on competing platforms. He also left to incorporate into its search results specialized content from some sites, including reviews of restaurants or hotels which was accused of embezzling.
At that time, the chairman of the FTC Jon Leibowitz said to have investigated “full and deep” so the allegations that Google manipulated the results of your search engine at the expense of its competitors, but without finding sufficient evidence to launch a lawsuit abuse.
Critics of Google attacked, meanwhile, because the group came by with a simple reprimand. Calls to reopen the investigation emerged after the revelation last month of a confidential internal report by the FTC, which experts had recommended opening a court case. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog consumer association considers “incomprehensible that the FTC has refused to bring a case to internet giant in view of the ubiquitous and convincing evidence.”
The new president the FTC, Edith Ramirez, estimated however that there should be no doubt about the decision of 2013, in which five members of the committee “agreed that there was no legal basis for action related to the main axis of research : the search “. “As we said when the investigation was closed, the commission concluded that the practices of Google in the search were not, in general, clearly anti-competitive,” said Ramirez
-. Leye toughest in Europe –
So far, Google has managed to solve most of your legal problems in the United States with minimal financial impact. Last year, ended amicably an investigation by the FTC about their practices in the field of mobile by agreeing to pay $ 19 million of amounts billed to clients for downloads made by their children.
At the end of 2013 , the US court decided in favor of the Internet giant in a battle with authors and publishers who accused him of violating their rights with its giant book digitization project, Google Books.
The group runs a risk much higher in the case of abuse of dominant position in Europe, with a possible fine that could reach 10% of its turnover, ie, more than 6,000 million.
Scott Cleland, President association promoting competition online NetCompetition also warns that Google might be more difficult to defend this time in America. The case is “highly problematic for Google because European competition law is quite harder than the US,” he says. Furthermore, “the domain of Google’s 90% market share in Europe is higher than in the US,” where his participation in the search was estimated in 2013 at about 70%, “and Google is not the dominant political influence in Europe has on the US executive, “said Cleland.
The group TechFreedom analysis technologies, based in Washington, for its part accuses Europe of” myopia “. “Instead of celebrating the technological evolution of the market, European regulators launched the last war,” said Geoffrey Manne, TechFreedom member specializing in competition, among other issues. “In the nearly four years it took for the EU to reach these accusations, traditional search engines lost its relevance, especially for comparisons before buying. Today, consumers can use, and do, mobile applications as Amazon, Facebook and Yelp to find products, restaurants and more, “he says.
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