French back Google monopoly complaint
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A French vertical search specialist has filed a fresh complaint against Google alleging the search and advertising behemoth is abusing its dominant position.
1plusV, the company behind ejustice.fr and other search sites, filed a complaint along with UK shopping comparison site Foundem and Ciao - a German shopping site backed by Microsoft. The companies complained that Google was unfairly tweaking search results in order to favour its own services and sites.
The company has filed a fresh complaint to the European Commission. It alleges Google is tying search terms and its AdWords service in an anti-competitive fashion.
In a statement given to Bloomberg the company said: “1PlusV accuses Google of pursuing a strategy of foreclosure against vertical search engines.”
The company said that Google's search appeared to favour Google Books results.
1plusV also claims that Google took retalitory action against other sites run by the company after it filed its original complaint. The company said Google's efforts to re-list its sites properly were erratic, the FT reports.
The Commission is currently questioning web publishers, advertisers and vertical search companies. It asks whether they believe Google's "natural search ranking algorithm" penalises the position of certain services compared to Google's own.
Google faces calls for a similar investigation in the US from the Department of Justice.
The DOJ is already investigating Google's attempted takeover of flight data provider ITA Software.
Should the Commission rule against Google it can levy fines of up to ten per cent of the company's European turnover. ®
COMMENTS
I want to add a complaint to this law suit
I went into Tesco the other day and was UTTERLY appauled by the fact that they are blatentatly advertising the stuff they sell in their own store. While I'm at it why do you never see adverts for Top Gear subscriptions in AutoCar? it's a bloody monoply I tell you and something must be done to protect the children.
So a failing Frog search engine and another German proxy for Microsoft are complaining?
Sort of obvious why.
Microsoft hasn't had a success with Bling, or whatever, the Frogs never really got it right so they all turn around and blame Google.
What a pile of horse droppings; and a waste of taxpayers money!
I thought this was about abuse of a monopoly
Like when Microsoft tried to force everyone to use IE, you could have chosen not to use the MS OS, but that was more expensive than to just use IE.
You could choose not to use google, but then you don't appear on the worlds no.1 search engine.
If google decide to move into your line of business and bumped you down their search results you lose business, it doesn't matter whether you're better, cheaper or whatever.
Their monopoly on search was home grown so I don't begrudge them that, but it shouldn't be able to be used to gain a monopoly in other markets.
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