Google rejects EU antitrust charges of abusing market power

Search giant Google Inc on Thursday rejected EU antitrust charges of abusing market power, exposing the company to the risk of a stiff fine if it did not change its business practices.

The company's comments follow accusations in April by the European Commission of distorting internet search results to favour its own shopping service at the cost of rivals and consumers (See: EC accuses Google of distorting internet search results).

The EU has alleged that Google favoured some of its own search results at the cost of rivals,

"Economic data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive," Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, wrote in a blog yesterday.

"We believe that the statement of objection's preliminary conclusions are wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics."

Confirming the receipt of Google's response to the charge sheet, commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said the commission would carefully consider Google's response before deciding how to proceed. He added, the commission did not want to prejudge the final outcome of the investigation.

In the event wrongdoing was proved, the company could face a fine sufficiently large to ensure deterrence, according to the Commission's charge sheet, which Reuters claims to have seen.

The EU antitrust authority could sanction wrongdoers up to 10 per cent of their global turnover.

Rejecting the charges Google said there was significant competition in the region's online search market and that the company's services increased choice for local consumers.

Google said its rivals such as Amazon and eBay competed against Google for online search requests. Rather than hitting rivals, it actually sent "roughly 20 billion referrals to other Internet companies in Europe over the last decade, leading to a 227 per cent increase in web traffic to those sites," Walker said.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, framed charges against Google in April, pointing out how the region's authorities believed that Google had abused its dominance in web searches to benefit some of its own services.

Google has a roughly 90-per cent share in Europe's search market, as against around 65 per cent in the US.

Vestager, a Danish politician who had been in the post for less than a year, had also said that  the EU was investigating Google over the dominance of its Android smartphone software, which was used by almost three-quarters of Europe's smartphone users, according to the data provider IDC.