Google offers to settle EU antitrust charges - report

News Broadband Europe 3 JUL 2012
Google offers to settle EU antitrust charges - report
Google has offered to settle antitrust charges following an ultimatum by EU regulators investigating its business practices. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia set an early July deadline for the company to resolve the concerns of more than a dozen rivals, including Microsoft, or face formal charges. 

A Google spokesman confirmed to Reuters that the company made a proposal to address the four areas the European Commission described as potential concerns. He declined to provide details. Almunia's spokesman confirmed that the EU watchdog received a letter from Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, on 02 July in reply to Almunia. He gave no details. 

Almunia in May identified four areas of concerns related to Google's business practices following an 18-month investigation. He said Google may have favoured its own search services over those of rivals and may have copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without their permission. He also said the company's advertising deals with websites may have blocked rivals while its contractual restrictions may prevent advertisers from moving their online campaigns to rival search engines.

Categories:

Internet,  Mobile

Companies:

Microsoft,  European Commission,  Google

Regions:

Europe

Tags:

Regulations, Portals / social media, Advertising services

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