Google nearing end of search engine abuse probe

Google and the European Commission (EC) are making progress in the probe into search engine abuse, with Google agreeing to EC requirements with its latest settlement proposal.

The case is the largest European Union anti-trust case and centres on Google favouring its own services in results pages and blocking competitors’ content, but the saga may be nearing an end.

EC competition head Joaquin Almunia said: “With significant improvements on the table, we can try again to seek an effective solution. The settlement route remains the best choice.

“The new proposal relates to queries entered in Google in whatever form – whether they are typed or spoken – and irrespective of the entry point or the device.”

Almunia would not reveal any further details of the settlement. The EC will now seek feedback from third parties and work with Google to finalise the settlement before a formal decision is reached in spring next year.

Google general counsel Kent Walker said: “While competition online is thriving, we’ve made the difficult decision to agree to their requirements in the interests of reaching a settlement.”

Meanwhile, there has been speculation over the impact of Google’s entrance into the insurance comparison market through its brand Google Compare.

Moneysupermarket has previously blamed changes to Google’s search engines for poor performance. In the aggregator’s trading update for the first half of 2013, it said: “Group trading in the second quarter was slower than the first quarter. This was principally because of a lower rate of growth in the insurance vertical, arising substantially following changes made by Google to its natural search algorithms, reducing our visitors and revenues from natural search in the month of June in the highly competitive insurance search area.”