Google Accused Unjustly?
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Google, the leading search engine firm, may end up suffering the ill effects of a European Commission investigation, following a complaint by opposing companies that it has been unjustly manipulating search results.
Google commands a share of almost 90% of the profitable search market in the
Google could incur a fine of up to 10% of its yearly revenue, which will probably come to $2.4 billion, if found guilty of the charges levied against it. The European Commission has actively taken up such complaints in the recent past: last year, it had levied a fine on Intel amounting to a staggering 1 billion for its anticompetitive conduct. More recently, it had made an unwilling Microsoft offer their users a range of browsers on their PCs that they could choose from, instead of only its own Internet Explorer.
If the investigation does happen, to begin with, the European Commission will only ask Google the reason why the complainants are not showing up in their search results: which will probably send the Google engineers scurrying to analyse the algorithm responsible for monitoring Google’s listings. It remains to be seen as to whether this is a case of deliberate tinkering or if it is an unintentional effect of the algorithm’s function. Whatever the result, an investigation of this nature could encourage more companies to jump on the bandwagon of complaints against Google, especially those who may want to put a check on Google’s ever-increasing power and influence.
In the meantime, Google has flatly denied these allegations and an official investigation into the complaints has also not been initiated yet.
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