The European Union is set to make a major move against Google. Its regulators intend to file charges against the world’s greatest search engine in the next few weeks for being a monopoly which violates European anti-trust laws, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
It is hard to see how Google can be accused by anyone of being a monopoly. There are still plenty of alternatives for its services; it is just that people overwhelmingly choose Google because it provides them with the best search engine available.
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Is the EU really going to punish a company just for being really good at what it does?
As for Google’s other products and services, its Android mobile system certainly is no monopoly and gets rated behind Apple’s iOS. Its Google Docs has to compete with MS Office and its Gmail is certainly no monopoly.
So what is it about Google that bothers the Europeans so much?
Part of the now five year old investigation revolves around accusations that Google has been taking information from other web sites without permission. The company also stands accused of unfairly restricting advertisers and software developers who do business with it.
According to the Journal, The European Commission has been asking those companies to allow it to make public certain parts of their complaints which they have officially made against Google. The content of said complaints is confidential and this request is seen as a sign that the Commission, which is the EU’s anti-trust authority, is ready to move forward with formal action against Google.
A Brussels-based lawyer representing a Google rival in the case told WSJ, “The fact that the commission has been seeking fuller [information] from complainants, against short deadlines [of] a couple of days, shows it is in the final stages of getting a statement of objections together. It’s part of the choreography you always see.”
