24 February 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Competition complaints lodged against Google

The European Commission has confirmed that it is looking into three separate complaints lodged against Google, which claim that the search giant's Universal Search is penalising competitors in favour of the company's own services.

The BBC reports that the complaints were filed by UK price comparison site Foundem, French search engine ejustice.fr and Ciao, the price comparison website bought by Microsoft in 2008.

All three have accused Google of acting against the interests of fair competition, but Google's senior competition lawyer Julia Holtz said the company was "confident" it was working within EU competition law.

"Foundem... argues that our algorithms demote their site in our results because they are a vertical search engine and so a direct competitor to Google," Google explained.

"Ejustice.fr's complaint seems to echo these concerns."

Foundem's founder Shivaun Raff has revealed that its issues with Google's rankings were resolved in December, but it is still pursuing the company for the benefit of other search firms. Ms Raff said: "We just want a level playing field. We are very hopeful that our case will inspire others."

The complaint lodged by Ciao was first taken to the German competition authority, but has now been transferred to Brussels. The Microsoft-owned site has filed a complaint concerning Google's terms and conditions, with issues over revenue generation through Google AdSense.

Google said: "Although we haven't been notified yet by the commission, we do believe it's natural for competition officials to look at online advertising given how important it is to the development of the internet and the dominance of one player.

"In the meantime, we continue to co-operate with the German government's investigation into complaints brought by Ciao."

The European Commission said that it was looking into the complaints made against Google, but was not yet pursuing a formal investigation, explaining: "As is usual when the Commission receives complaints, it informed Google earlier this month and asked the company to comment on the allegations.

"The Commission closely cooperates with the national competition authorities."

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