LONDON: The European Commission is said to be planning to charge Google with using its dominant position in online searches to favour the company’s own services over others, in what would be one of the biggest antitrust cases here since regulators went after Microsoft.
Europe’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, is expected to make an announcement on Wednesday in Brussels that Google has abused its dominant position, according to two people who spoke on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.
The decision to push ahead with a so-called statement of objections is the latest twist in the lengthy investigation into Google’s activities in Europe, where it holds a roughly 90 percent share in the region’s search market. If Europe is successful in making its case, the US tech giant could face a huge fine and may be forced to alter its business practices to give smaller competitors such as Yelp greater prominence in its search queries.
A representative for Google declined to comment.
The investigation against Google already has dragged on for nearly five years at the European Commission without formal charges or a negotiated settlement. That delay has prompted criticism that the region’s most important antitrust enforcer has been going too easy on Google.
Europe’s main focus of investigation is whether Google has abused its search engine’s large market share by favoring its own products. The search engine is more dominant in Europe than in the United States, where competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing still hold a sizable market share.
Vestager, a Danish politician who took over as Europe’s top antitrust official in November, will travel to Washington this week, where she is expected to meet senior Justice Department officials and participate in antitrust conferences.
More than two dozen companies and organizations have filed antitrust complaints in Europe against Google. Many are in Germany, where powerful publishing groups and online firms have called on the European regulator to stop Google from blocking competition in sectors such as online mapping, travel services, and shopping.
