Is Google Search playing the numbers to benefit its own shopping service? Europe's top anti-trust commission now officially thinks so.

Since last year's "right to be forgotten" saga, it's been clear that the European Union has had its increasingly skeptical eye on American technology giants -- especially Google. On Wednesday, the EU's European Commission launched the first stage of what could be a long fight between EU officials and the Mountain View Internet giant, officially alleging a list of anti-competitive practices against Google search and launching a new formal investigation into Google's mobile ecosystem, Android.

In an announcement by the European Commission released Wednesday, the EU officials overseeing an investigation into Google's practices overseas announced it had sent a "Statement of Objections" to Google that contends the company "has abused its dominant position in the markets for general Internet search services in the European Economy Area (EEA) by systematically favouring its own comparison shopping product in its general search result pages."

The detailed list the commission's preliminary findings reads like a rap sheet of anti-trust violations -- or alternately, as an aggressive marketing and product strategy outline, if you read it with a Silicon Valley mindset. Among the charges, the commission found:

  • Google systematically positions and prominently displays its comparison shopping service in its general search results pages, irrespective of its merits. This conduct started in 2008.
  • Google does not apply to its own comparison shopping service the system of penalties, which it applies to other comparison shopping services on the basis of defined parameters, and which can lead to the lowering of the rank in which they appear in Google's general search results pages.
  • Froogle, Google's first comparison shopping service, did not benefit from any favourable treatment, and performed poorly.
  • As a result of Google's systematic favouring of its subsequent comparison shopping services "Google Product Search" and "Google Shopping", both experienced higher rates of growth, to the detriment of rival comparison shopping services.
  • Google's conduct has a negative impact on consumers and innovation. It means that users do not necessarily see the most relevant comparison shopping results in response to their queries, and that incentives to innovate from rivals are lowered as they know that however good their product, they will not benefit from the same prominence as Google's product.

The commission recommended that Google treat its own shopping service equally to rivals in search results in order to remedy the situation. As Ars Technica pointed out, the report doesn't touch on Google's search algorithms or the design of search results screens, and the EU Commissioner in charge, Margrethe Vestager, specifically signaled a hands-off approach to such specifics.

"I think it will be difficult to supervise the algorithm," said Vestager, emphasizing the report seeks "to find something guided by principles, that leaves the algorithm and screen design as the responsibility of Google" in order that any prospective compliance by Google could be "future-proofed." In contrast, after the EU disciplined Microsoft for favoring Internet Explorer in Windows, the software solution they arrived at quickly became obsolete and unnecessary soon after it was implemented.

Meanwhile, the commission also said it was launching a separate investigation into Android, stating that "The Commission's in-depth investigation will focus on whether Google has breached EU anti-trust rules by hindering the development and market access of rival mobile operating systems, applications and services to the detriment of consumers and developers of innovative services and products."

In plain English, the commission is saying it's looking into whether or not Google broke EU anti-trust rules by requiring (or at least strongly encouraging) smartphone manufacturers to always bundle or pre-install Google apps and services, in order to use the company's open source mobile OS. It's also inquiring into Google's possible violation of anti-trust rules by hindering or discouraging Android forks -- highly modified versions of the operating system -- from being adopted more widely.

The European Commission gave Google 10 weeks to officially reply to their objections over the company's shopping service and search practices, which could end up costing the company as much as $6.6 billion under EU regulations.

Google, however, immediately responded with a long, detailed public blog post entitled "The Search for Harm," in which Google Search Senior VP Amit Singhal argued that plenty of choices for search, news and shopping besides Google now exist. He also posted several country-specific graphs showing traffic growth and dominance over the years for practically every shopping site but Google's own.

On the EU's new investigation into Android, Google released a blog post strongly disagreeing with the commission's preliminary investigative statement, saying, "The European Commission has asked questions about our partner agreements. It's important to remember that these are voluntary."

Google also couldn't help but point the finger at Apple as a more glaring case of anti-trust practices, saying, "And remember that these distribution agreements are not exclusive, and Android manufacturers install their own apps and apps from other companies as well. And in comparison to Apple -- the world's most profitable (mobile) phone company -- there are far fewer Google apps pre-installed on Android phones than Apple apps on iOS devices."

But who knows? As with Facebook and its user data practices, EU officials might be gearing up to action against Apple as well.

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