European Antitrust Regulators to Hold Discussions With Google’s Rivals 

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European antitrust regulators will hold discussions with the companies most concerned by Google’s business practices before deepening existing investigations or resolving them, the new competition commissioner for the European Union said Tuesday.

Google has faced an increasing barrage of criticism in Europe, where there is widespread concern about how United States technological dominance could affect personal privacy and the ability of European rivals to compete effectively.

“I need to know what those most directly affected by the practices in question have to say,” Margrethe Vestager, the new commissioner, said in a statement after a question about Google earlier in the day from a member of the European Parliament. “I will therefore need some time to decide on the next steps.”

Powerful German and French publishing groups have already played lead roles in successfully delaying a proposed antitrust settlement between Google and Ms. Vestager’s predecessor, Joaquín Almunia, over the company’s dominant position in online search and advertising in Europe. Mr. Almunia formally opened that case in 2010.

The search giant could theoretically face a fine of nearly $6 billion in the case. Fines have never gone that high, but antitrust experts say such penalties are set to rise.

Google could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday night. But the company has previously said that its proposal to settle that case addressed all of the concerns raised by European authorities and greatly increased the visibility of rival services in search results.

Ms. Vestager, a former Danish finance minister who took office on Nov. 1, also inherited a complaint filed in 2013 by a group of Google’s competitors, including the mobile phone maker Nokia and the software titan Microsoft. That case, which is at early stages of investigation, accused Google of using its Android software to place Google-branded applications in prominent positions on a device’s desktop.

Other complaints have come from an association of photo libraries; a Portuguese app store provider that says Google’s search results favor the Google Play app store; and from Yelp, the review site.

Source: NYT – European Antitrust Regulators to Hold Discussions With Google’s Rivals

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