EU expands antitrust investigation into Google for playing favorites with ads
The EU really doesn’t like the way Google does business. The European Commission — the body which regulates business in the European Union — is now investigating Google for some anticompetitive practices in the realm of search ads.
Specifically, the EU is objecting Google’s supposed clause of ad exclusivity for their AdSense partners. Third-party websites who use search engines powered by Google have to agree not to show ads from competing search engines like Bing and Yahoo near the search result. This clause might even extend to ads showing up on the entirety of the website in some cases.
Furthermore, they still have issues with Google seemingly favoring their own shopping comparison website over others when users look products up. The commission has outlined “a broad range of additional evidence and data,” which should be handy in their quest to show how Google isn’t playing fair.
All of this piles into somewhat related cases against Google in the region for the mobile space where the EU believes Google is stifling competition by making sure their apps are front and center on Android phones.
[via European Commission]