Following the trail of money has been an age old strategy, after all, we do have Hollywood tell us that “greed is good”, according to a certain Gordon Gekko. Well, Google is for sure one of the cash rich companies in the world, and I cannot help but have a cynical viewpoint on the current situation upon hearing that Joaquín Almunia, the European Union competition commissioner, had requested for Google “to present better proposals” to allay antitrust concerns within the European Union. He claims that Google’s previous proposals are unable to overcome the EU’s concerns, and only more concessions from Google would do.
Right now, it is not money that the EU is asking from Google, but rather, for Google to tweak the way that search results appear. One of Google’s major proposals include displaying links to the sites of competitors who are also involved in specialized search services, and should Google sell advertising that is adjacent to search results for general industries such as hotels and restaurants, Google will also offer a menu of three options at the bare minimum where non-Google search services are concerned. This is apparently still not enough to satisfy the EU, so hopefully something will work out between the two parties soon. After all, Google has a strong stake in Europe, where they control over 90% of the Internet search market in select European countries, contrasting that with around 70% in the US.
Filed in . Read more about Google.