“Disappointing news”: Google and the EU procedures – tagesschau.de

Date: 16/04/2015 04:36 clock

An internal mail and a blog post – so Google has responded to the allegations Brussels. The European Commission accused the company from abuse its market power. The process is Google not to be taken lightly. A fine of billions threatens

By Wolfgang Stuflesser, ARD Radio Studio Los Angeles

Let -. So literally – “very disappointing news” that would qualify as from Europe, according to an internal memo Google coursing now on various news sites. But Google denies the EU Commission’s complaint, the search engine giant abusing its near-monopoly parking Lung to prefer to use when searching for specific request product in the search results the own price comparison service “Google Shopping”.

In a lengthy blog post lays Amit Singhal, head of the area on Google search engine, his perspective is: With graphs in order to show that Google’s own shopping service was significantly less successful than the competition. This shows that Singhal, “that there are a lot competing offers, including those from Amazon and Ebay, the biggest shopping sites in the world” and that “Google’s shopping search results of competition have not harmed.”

Google argues with Zalando

Even the IPO of the German online shoe merchant Zalando last year leads Singhal as evidence that there seemed to be a lot of innovation in the European online shopping market. This is usually a sign that not just one company, namely Google, dominate the market.

Michael Carrier, a law professor at Rutgers School of Law in New Jersey, suggested in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that Google will not take the investigation still lightly: “The method could be of global significance. Against Google has been so many times determined Many countries observe the company just because Google so is successful and large size with success and “

majority in Europe

To see this fact is also not around Google: The absolute supremacy of the Google Search on the European market. By the way is much bigger than Google’s home country USA: Here, the Group A media expert and journalism expert Jeff Jarvis, even a 67 percent market share in Europe more than 90 percent

. avowed Google fan, the company takes in an interview with the Austrian magazine Profil in protection: “We want success, we want business grow – and then there is this invisible line that is not fixed by law, if a company exceeds. , it is too big But where there is a law that this ‘too big’ There is only defined this impression.? ‘Oh, you’re too big’ That’s what I keep hearing in Europe: ‘Google is too big.’ But what does that mean? And who has Google made big? The Europeans! “Says Jarvis.

He criticized that the Commission does not of their own accord and in the interest of the citizens and citizens handle, but react with the method to the criticism of European enterprises to Google. For example, had Matthias Döpfner, Chief of the Axel Springer Group, published an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Board of Directors in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last year. Title: “Why do we fear Google”

competitors from Europe

? “text small”> Jarvis sees the EU procedures therefore as evidence of protectionism that Europe or artificially abschirme against international competition and set himself free and fair competition contrary to ask: “Where are the European competitor for Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon? I should like to see such competitors from Europe, then ensure that more innovation. But I am afraid that the negative culture in Europe and protectionism will not lead to this innovation. “

But Europe is an important market for Google. The Group is in the ten weeks he now has time to react, probably do everything possible to persuade the EU Commission to settle the case. In the United States there has been a similar case against Google a few years ago. At that time the company was ready to make significant Zugständnissen to escape severe punishment. Google acknowledged, for example, its advertisers better ways a to manage their advertising campaigns across various platforms and also easier to book with Google competitors ads.

The EU could a penalty of up to 6 , 6 billion euros against Google impose. Thus, a sum not paid a giant like Google just out of petty cash

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