'We've done nothing wrong' - Schmidt on Euro antitrust probe
Defiant Google supremo buttonholed by El Reg
Posted in Management, 23rd May 2012 14:17 GMT
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Big Tent Google chairman Eric Schmidt has declined to be drawn on possible incoming antitrust law infringement charges in Europe.
The Register repeatedly asked Schmidt to explain if his company would indeed offer up "remedies" to Brussels officials currently probing Google's business practices, which some rivals have claimed favours the ad broker's search engine over others.
Google has maintained that it is not aware of anything it had done wrong that could be perceived as violating European law.
Schmidt was attending the search giant's annual Big Tent event in Watford today.
But El Reg was dissatisfied with his response.
"I'm sorry you're disappointed," he told us, before going on to reiterate that Google is still in conversation mode with Europe's competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia.
Earlier this week, Almunia indicated that there was almost certainly a case to answer for and outlined four areas of concern where the company might be guilty of "abuses of dominance".
When quizzed by The Reg specifically on that detail, Schmidt declined to respond on whether his firm would indeed put forward any "remedies" as requested by Almunia, who was clear that a Statement of Objections could be issued within weeks if Google didn't play ball.
Schmidt claimed that he hadn't seen any precise examples of which laws his company might have abused and remained steadfast that his firm would be continuing to talk to the competition commissioner and his team.
Earlier, Schmidt told the Big Tent crowd that he was "not aware of anything we've done wrong. We're happy to be educated on the contrary".
Beyond that, he said "we're not going to speculate", which is interesting not least because of the amount of evidence that has been placed in the public domain from complainants who have grumbled to the European Commission that Google does favour its own search results over others. ®
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COMMENTS
Ummmmm
I fail to see how Google is doing anything wrong, they chrge people to have their adverts on their sites and also to be a prefered search result.
That being the case of cource those appear at the top along with the most popular click throughs etc.
What would you expect to happen ? Search for a fridge when in London and get results from some small town in the Lake District ?
I go to Google knowing what I want and am able to locate it thanks, I don't want random results or those or other companies. If I want Bing results I will use Bing etc.
Monopolies
I tried to buy some tickets recently from a site where the webmaster had chosen to use Google Checkout.
I couldn't do it without opening a Google account! And naturally, that requires a verifiable email address and for you to agree to their "privacy policy".
PayPal and Nochex don't require people to open an account with them in order to use them to process financial transactions.
Re: Even if they do favour their own results
Gordon do yourself a favour and realise the legal system is based on rules (called laws) not an individual's personal view on what's OK.
>>Its their search engine. They can do what they want to be honest.
This is just a hugely ignorant statement. I can't use my car to run someone over and say "it's my car I can do what I want", I can't use my business' monopoly in one market to gain an advantage in another market with the same excuse.
They're apparently still in the legal stage of "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "Uh, no, officer..."
'We've done nothing wrong' -- Seems to be quite a popular sure-fire get-out-of-jail free pass these days.
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