Rival search services gain a guaranteed spot alongside Google results, but competitors say it isn’t enough.

Google has agreed to settle a eu Union antitrust investigation launched three years ago by promising to modify how it operates its search business. After twice rejecting Google’s proposed changes to its search business practices last year, the eu Commission, the ecu executive body, now finds Google’s concessions adequate to prevent a legal challenge.

For Google, the agreement eliminates the chance of a costly antitrust battle in European courts. The corporate still faces separate antitrust inquiries regarding its Android business and to the way in which its Motorola Mobility unit, that is being sold to Lenovo, sought injunctions over industry-standard patents.

In January, Google settled an antitrust inquiry conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, to the dissatisfaction of FairSearch.org, a lobbying group supported by Oracle, Microsoft, Nokia, and diverse search industry competitors. Unsurprisingly, FairSearch.org offered an identical assessment of the Commission’s decision.

[Stay accountable for your privacy when using Google. Read 5 Google Opt-Out Settings To ascertain.] 

“The eu Commission has tentatively accepted an offer by Google that’s worse than doing nothing,” said Thomas Vinje, FairSearch Europe Legal Counsel, in a press release.

On Wednesday, the Commission said that Google has guaranteed that after it promotes its own specialized search services, resembling Google Shopping, on search pages, it’ll also promote the services of 3 rivals, “selected through an objective method.” The image below shows how that promise might make Google’s mobile search results look — the golf green shaded ads point to a competitor of Google Shopping.

Competitors that like to be represented through these links should bid on them if Google normally charges for inclusion, because it does with Google Shopping. Vinje objects to the usage of “an auction mechanism that requires participating companies handy nearly all of their profits to Google.”

But Joaquín Almunia, vice chairman of the eu Commission accountable for competition policy, stressed that the Commission is bothered with fair competition in preference to interfering with Google’s search algorithm or dictating its business practices. “Our concern was that, given the favorable treatment of Google’s own services on its page, competitors’ results that are potentially as relevant to the user as Google’s own services — or maybe more relevant — may be significantly less visible or circuitously visible, resulting in an undue diversion of Internet traffic,” he said in prepared remarks.

Google may be monitored for compliance for 5 years. The corporate has also agreed to concessions akin to those made to the FTC. It should allow content providers to withhold their content from Google’s specialized search services without retribution. It’ll remove exclusivity requirements from its publisher advertising agreements. This can also remove its restrictions preventing advertisers from automating the export of information to competing ad platforms.

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Thomas Claburn was writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications which include New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and tv, having earned a not particularly useful … View Full Bio

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