Simon Wadsworth speaks to Bloomberg on Google anti-trust complaints

Igniyte Managing Director Simon Wadsworth recently spoke to US news agency Bloomberg about what comes next for Google, as anti-trust complaints against the world’s largest search engine in Europe continue to mount.

Recently, European Union anti-trust regulators lodged two additional “statements of objections” against Google, which is owned by parent company Alphabet Inc.

In these statements, the regulators said that they had extensive evidence to indicate in search results, Google favours its own comparison-shopping service. They also suggested that Google restricts how rival ads are displayed.

This builds on a similar anti-trust complaints that the European Commission first placed in April 2015. Meanwhile in April 2016, the EU filed an anti-trust complaint against Alphabet Inc., concerning the alleged market-dominance of its Android mobile operating system. Google is also facing separate inquiries on its compliance with EU “right to be forgotten rules” and its use of copyrighted content.

Responding to these anti-trust complaints, Google said that its products “increased choice for European consumers and promote competition.” In the next few weeks, the company added, it will deliver a detailed response to the Commission’s complaints.

Commenting on this news, Simon said: “Google search, and what influences its algorithms, are widely unknown but are based as far as we know on human needs and are a reflection of our previous searches. To prove anti-completive behaviour will be difficult.”

Continuing, he noted: “Google also provides many products free such as Maps, developer tools and Gmail… which competitors such as Bing have similar versions of, but yet are less popular. Because of this, it’s worth considering the impact of penalizing a company which continues to lead the way in terms of innovation.”

Simon’s commentary on Google’s European anti-trust complaints was also covered by Mercury News and the East Bay Times. If you wish to discuss this issue further, please get in touch so you can speak to a member of the Igniyte team.

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