The news for Google in Europe hasn't been the best of late, and now, one of the region's leading consumer bodies has called for tighter controls against the search giant.
The European Consumer's Organization (BEUC) penned a letter to the EU's antitrust commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, last week calling for sanctions against Google. The BEUC is designed to defend the interests of consumers in Europe and boasts 31 member nations, including the U.K., Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany.
"We are concerned that the dominant search engine, Google, may have abused its position in the search market to direct users to its own services and secondly to reduce the visibility of competing websites and services," wrote BEUC Director General Monique Goyens.
In February 2010, Google announced that the European Commission had received complaints from three companies about "whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners."
In her letter, Goyens pointed to one of those companies, Foundem. "According to the comments submitted to the United States' FCC by Foundem, a U.K.-based price comparison website, through the Universal search, Google regularly places its own services at or near the top of Google's search results and diverts traffic from its competitors to its own services," she wrote.
Ejustice.fr, and Ciao! from Bing also filed complaints. In February 2011, 1plusV, a parent company of eJustice.fr, joined the complaint, and Microsoft followed suit in March.
"We are seriously concerned that if these allegations are substantiated by the Commission's analysis and investigation, consumers have suffered harm from Google's dominance by being provided with partial results of their search queries and thus being deprived of the possibility to make informed choices," Goyen continued. "It is important that the European Commission exercises its powers to sanction dominant companies who abuse their position to the detriment of consumer welfare."
Though the comments from BEUC itself hold no specific legal impact for Google, the letter puts the ongoing EU antitrust investigation back in the news. Almunia announced recently that a ruling on how it will proceed with the antitrust investigation into Google will be rendered some time after April 8. Today, the EU commissioner told Reuters, "We want to advance in our investigation but we want to advance on a solid basis, not because of a letter or some pressures."
In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission is also conducting a review of Google's business, but further details have not been released.
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