EU weighs complaints from rivals that it demotes them in search rankings

EU weighs Google rivals’ complaints

BRUSSELS — The European Commission said it has asked Google Inc. to comment on allegations by rivals that it demotes their sites in its search rankings — but stressed it was not starting an antitrust case.

EU spokeswoman Amelia Torres said Wednesday that the EU antitrust office has received complaints from three Google rivals, but had not “opened a formal investigation, for the time being … We are in a stage of looking at the allegations.”

Google said it would provide “feedback and additional information on these complaints.” It denied it was violating any EU antitrust rules.

EU law speaks of an antitrust violation if a company abuses a dominant market position. It provides for fines of up to 10 percent of a company’s global turnover.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, sounded unconcerned.

“While we will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints, we are confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law,” Julia Holtz, Google’s Senior Competition Counsel, said on a corporate blog.

The European Commission did not name the companies that have filed complaints. But Holtz said they were Foundem, a British price comparison site and the French legal search engine ejustice.fr that complained about being ranked in low in Google searches.

And, Microsoft Corp’s Ciao! from Bing has filed a complaint about Google’s standard terms and conditions, she added.

The low rankings complaint is significant because high rankings in Google searches drive higher volumes of traffic to web sites.

“Our algorithms aim to rank first what people are most likely to find useful,” said Holtz. She said after Microsoft acquired Ciao! in 2008 “we started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions,” an issue that now before the EU antitrust office.

Holtz said while Foundem and ejustice.fr on the one hand, and Ciao! from Bing on the other, raise “slightly different issues, the question they ultimately pose is whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners. This is not the case.”

On the Net:

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