Google is one of the biggest companies in the world. The Mountain View giant dabbles in lots of various aspects of tech, and we’re used to that. Having this much power usually means you’ll have to face some accusations along the way, like the one issued by the European Commission back in April. European Commission has basically accused Google of distorting internet search results in favor of its own shopping service. If true, this is, of course, wrong, and has definitely harmed both Google’s competitors and consumers. Well, Google has now gone official and rejected any antitrust charges issued by the EU.
“Economic data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive. We believe that the statement of objection’s preliminary conclusions are wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics,” said Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel. The Commission’s spokesman said that they’ll consider Google’s response before moving forward, but will definitely continue their investigation. This is, of course, a serious matter, and if European Commission does find some irregularities in Google’s business, Google could be issued with a severe fine and repercussions.
A number of industry’s analysts have had their say on this matter since April, and each of them has their own opinion. Mr. Walker, however, thinks that European Commission has failed to recognize incredibly strong competition from eBay and Amazon, while adding that the internet traffic has risen 227% in the last 10 years in the countries Google’s accused of abusing their power. Back in April, we were hoping that this matter will be solved quickly, but that obviously won’t be the case. Google is denying all allegations against them, and the investigation European Commission has issued will be a long one by the looks of it.
Unfortunately for Google, EU is not the only party that has issued an investigation against them, South Korea’s government did the same thing recently. We’ve reported earlier this month that Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) intends to investigate Google for the same reasons European Commission is, abusing power. Both of these cases are currently on the way, and it remains to be seen what will happen in the end, stay tuned.