Parlamentari europei chiedono ad Almunia che Google sottoponga alle stesse regole i propri servizi e quelli dei competitor

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Google should apply the same ranking rules to its own services as it does to others, two leading members of the European Parliament have told EU antitrust chief Joaquín Almunia. Lawmakers Andreas Schwab and Ramon Tremosa i Balcells also want a full consultation on a new set of remedies proposed by Google, they said in a letter. If this fails, the regulator should drop settlement talks and move to a stricter probe, they suggested.

Google should apply the same ranking rules to its own services as it does to others, two leading members of the European Parliament have told EU antitrust chief Joaquín Almunia.
 
Lawmakers Andreas Schwab and Ramon Tremosa i Balcells also want a full consultation on a new set of remedies proposed by Google, they said in a letter.

The two parliamentarians are among the assembly’s most prominent members interested in competition policy. This year, Tremosa is drafting the parliament’s annual report on antitrust enforcement, and Schwab is in charge of the assembly’s position on new legislation for antitrust litigation.

On Oct. 1, they organized a hearing in the parliament where Almunia outlined the latest steps in his antitrust investigation into Google. The search engine is suspected of favoring its own services — e.g. for shopping or maps — when it delivers search results.

After rivals objected to a first package of changes offered by Google, Almunia said the company had made “significant” improvements, displaying more prominently the links to rivals’ services in its search results. He said he could settle the case “next spring” (see here).

In a letter sent to the commissioner yesterday and seen by MLex, the lawmakers said Google should apply the “same rules regarding search results ranking for third party services as for Google’s own services.” This supports demands from rival search engines such as Foundem, which complain that they have dropped down in Google’s search results.

At the moment, Google’s commitments include setting aside a place on its search page where rivals can enter an auction process to have a link to their services displayed. The search engine will still be able to give prominence to its own services.

Almunia said he wouldn’t conduct a full market test, under which the new remedies would be published in the EU’s Official Journal and opened to a broad consultation. Instead, he will seek specific information directly from market players.

The lawmakers’ letter said that “only a formal market test” can provide the technical detail necessary to assess Google’s new remedies.

“Getting such evidence will take time; therefore we share the general concern that at this stage of the investigation it is much more important to take the necessary time to reach effective commitments rather than to rush to an inadequate or even emphatically harmful settlement.”

If a second market test fails, the lawmakers said, the commission should stop settlement talks and move to a stricter investigative procedure. The next step in such a probe would be formal antitrust charges.

They also said there was a “broader societal issue” at stake in allowing “one innovative, yet dominating company” to have such a strong grip on collecting information.
 
The European Parliament has no formal role in antitrust investigations. But it has become more vocal about the commission’s enforcement activities in recent years, pushing for tighter scrutiny of retail markets and the banking industry.