EU Initiates New Anti-trust Probe Against Google
The European Commission has launched a probe into allegations from three companies of anti-competitive activity by search-engine-giant Google. It is not an indication of guilt by any stretch, but the displeasure felt by the three companies (Google disclosed them as British price comparison site Foundem, French legal search engine ejustice.fr, and Ciao from Bing) was enough to report them to the European regulatory body, which has the power to fine companies up to ten percent of a company found to be in violation of anti-competitive laws.
The allegations are that Google has basically rigged their search engine results to show the three complainants lower than they should be. Google, on the other hand, claims that they did no such thing, but that the design of their search algorithm, which ranks sites according to how useful their users find the individual results that pop up for their search terms, was to blame.
We will keep you updated on any developments that occur, although it is unlikely that much more than a bit of publicity will come from the hubbub.
Sources: Wired, Reuters
