Brussels, 08/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - The third raft of the amendments proposed by Google in response to the accusations of abusing its dominant position may again be deemed insufficient, given new arguments put forward by the plaintiffs, according to the European Commissioner responsible for this dossier, Joaquin Almunia, in an interview to Bloomberg on 6 September.
Almunia explained that “some replies are very negative”. He said that several parties had introduced “new arguments, new data, new considerations, so we now need to analyse this and to see if we can find solutions, if Google can find solutions to some of these concerns that we consider justified”. Several corporate plaintiffs organised a press briefing as part of the response against the most recent commitments made by Google and the way in which the Commission has managed the case (see EUROPE 11148). Almunia, however, refused to provide any indications about what the result of the investigation would be and would only say that “we are in a ongoing process, we work in a rigorous way trying to understand arguments from complainants and trying to extract solutions from Google to this solid argument”.
Sensing that the wind had changed, Google defended its action in an article written by its CEO, Eric Schmidt, that same day, in a blog written by the US giant. It refuted the accusation of abusing its dominant position and explained that internet users tended to go directly to information sites to find press articles or airline sites to reserve flights, without necessarily going through the intermediary of an internet browser. Schmidt argued that “neither is it true that we are promoting our own products to the disadvantage of competition; at the top of the page we show the results that directly respond to users' requests; after all, we built Google for them and not for the sites”. Google also called for a meeting with certain MEPs who spoke against the US company's commitments.
Almunia must decide before the end of September the way in which he expects to go forward in this case which he describes as “complex”. The next Commission could possibly inherit the dossier and call for greater visibility for Google rivals and revision of the bidding principle in which three rival services will be put forward (see EUROPE 11127). In his interview to Bloomberg, Almunia also indicated that if a satisfactory from Google concerning the mobile Android system is not forthcoming, an investigation could also be opened on this front. (EL)