Antitrust claims against Google are nothing new, and the company stands accused of abusing its position and favouring its own products in search results in Europe. Today, Google's General Counsel Kent Walker responded to the European Commission's claims, saying they are "unfounded".
Google has filed an official response to the Commission, but a public blog post gives an accessible insight into the company's mindset. The EU is unhappy with the way Google displayed shopping links in search results, saying its own services are given undue prominence. Google says that far from being anti-competitive, the way it displays search results is beneficial to its users.
In a blog post entitled Improving quality isn't anti-competitive, Walker dismisses accusations that came about after price comparison services complained that they were being squashed by the giant. The EU suggests that the way Google displays search results is unfair; Google -- unsurprising -- disagrees, saying the charges are "wrong as a matter of fact, law and economics".
It says that the amount of traffic it drives to competing price comparison sites has risen by 227 percent over the last ten years. Google also points to the emergence of new price comparison services as evidence that it is not stifling the market. The company also says that too much emphasis has been placed on people using Google to find products when in fact other sites, such as Amazon, are the first port of call for large numbers of people. Relatedly, the company says that it is under no obligation to direct searchers to its rivals as people are free to use alternative search tools if they want.
In his post, Walker says that the European Commission makes allegations that it is not able to back up. He says that "data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents, and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive". Far from having a detrimental effect for customers, Google says that the way it operates is entirely beneficial:
Our central point is our consistent commitment to quality -- the relevance and usefulness of our search results and the ads we display. In providing results for people interested in shopping, we knew we needed to go beyond the old-fashioned '10 blue links' model to keep up with our competitors and better serve our users and advertisers. We developed new ways to organize and rank product information and to present it to users in useful formats in search and ads.
He goes on to explain that the way Google tailors its search results helps to improve relevance:
Showing ads based on structured data provided by merchants demonstrably improves ad quality and makes it easier for consumers to find what they’re looking for. We show these ad groups where we’ve always shown ads -- to the right and at the top of organic results -- and we use specialized algorithms to maximize their relevance for users. Data from users and advertisers confirms they like these formats. That’s not 'favoring' -- that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.
Google argues that it is not in its interest to do anything other than provide the most relevant search results to people, and that it precisely what it is doing.
Photo credit: photogearch / Shutterstock
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