In March, the EC informed Google of four areas where it thought the search giant may be abusing its dominant position. To address these concerns, Google has offered to label promoted links to its own services so that users can distinguish them from other web search results and clearly separate these promoted links by graphical features (such as a frame), as well as display links to three rival specialised search services close to its own services, in a place that is clearly visible to users. It will also offer all websites the option to opt-out from the use of their content in Google's specialised search services, while ensuring that any opt-out does not affect their rankings in Google's general web search results.
Google will offer all sites that focus on product search or local search the option to mark certain categories of information in such a way that such information is not indexed or used by Google. Newspaper publishers will also receive a way to control on a web page, per web page basis the display of their content in Google News.
In addition, Google agreed to no longer make any agreements with publishers conditional on using online search advertisements exclusively from Google, nor impose obligations preventing advertisers from managing campaigns across competing advertising platforms.
The commitments would cover the European Economic Area for five years. An independent Monitoring Trustee would advise the Commission in overseeing the proper implementation of the commitments. Interested parties can comment on the proposals for one month.
