Google is being probed by the European Commission for antitrust behavior. EC officials confirmed Wednesday that the Internet search giant is under investigation after a trio of companies filed complaints against Google.
The complaints came from Foundem, a price-comparison web site; French legal search site Ejustice; and Ciao from Bing, a search site operated by Microsoft.
Google wasted no time defending itself against the allegations. Google said it is confident that it operates in the interests of its users and partners and within European law, according to Julia Holtz, Google’s senior competition counsel.
Attorneys for Google said the probe into its business behavior isn’t a surprise, given the source of the complaints. Foundem is a member of an organization called ICOMP, which is partly funded by Microsoft, and Ciao is now owned by Microsoft.
“It makes sense for the world for Google to say this is just another case of us against Microsoft, but it is not going to carry a lot of weight with EC investigators who are going to look at each specific claim,” said Ilan Barzilay, a partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
While Google may be playing its us-against-Microsoft card, each complaint is different. Foundem, based in the U.K., told the EC that Google demotes its web site in its results because it’s a vertical search engine.
“Google says they have 90 percent of the U.K. search market,” Barzilay said. “And when they are giving their own product preferential treatment, the EU can have problems with that.”
Ciao, which first took its case to the German competition authority before it was moved to Brussels, has complaints about Google’s standard terms and conditions.
Ciao was once an AdSense partner with Google, and Google said the two companies had a good business relationship. “However, after Microsoft acquired Ciao in 2008, we…