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back to article Google gets closer to EU antitrust deal over search dominance 'abuse'

Google is closing in on a deal with competition officials in the European Commission which stops far short of formal sanctions, after the EU's antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia said today that he was negotiating a settlement agreement with the ad giant. Almunia's office is working on "the precise drafting of the proposed …

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  1. Paul Shirley

    how utterly predictable

    "The Commission's plan to issue Requests for Information would seem much less satisfactory than a second formal market test."

    It's slowly dawning on Fairsearch and co. that they aren't actually driving this fiasco. Slowing Almunia down a lot but they're his excuse not his masters. So this time around they don't get an effective veto and what they say will be examined closely and if necessary rejected. How annoying that must be over in Redmond.

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    1. Rallicat
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      Re: how utterly predictable

      Regardless of how it impacts Microsoft, or not. You are indeed correct that the EC are operating in an independent and fair minded approach, and so it was the case when they found that Google were indeed abusing their position by harming competitors. Otherwise, surely they'd have thrown the case out, right?

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: how utterly predictable

        On Google's search page the other day was a link to the new Nexus 7 tablet. If that isn't market abuse I don't know what is.

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        1. M Gale
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          Re: how utterly predictable

          On Google's search page the other day was a link to the new Nexus 7 tablet. If that isn't market abuse I don't know what is.

          Please tell me you're just trolling?

          Only I just saw several links to Microsoft Windows on that Bing thing. I only wanted to look up some prices on double glazing, too.

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      2. Paul Shirley
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        Re: "Otherwise, surely they'd have thrown the case out, right?"

        If Almunia really thought he had a strong case it wouldn't still be dragging on after 3 years with Google making pretend concessions that only pissed of their competition more.

        I believe this is more about Almunia (and other EU politicos) wanting a big US scalp before the job ends. A lot of bluster, some foolish time wasted listening to the wrong people but a core lack of belief in what they're claiming. It's going to fizzle out with everyone trying to claim a win but no substantive change but plenty of window dressing.

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  2. ratfox
    Trollface

    So Bing must also include in its results links to Google services?

    Right? Right?

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    1. Rallicat
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      Re: So Bing must also include in its results links to Google services?

      No, in the same way that the EU's judgements against Microsoft enforcing their display of a 'browser choice' screen doesn't mean that you get the same thing in Mac OS X, iOS, Android or for that matter any other OS.

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