The European Union’s antitrust chief formally accused Google of abusing its dominance in web searches, bringing charges that could limit the giant American tech company’s moneymaking prowess.
The case is the first time that antitrust charges have been brought against Google, despite a year long face-off between the company and regulators here. It will almost certainly increase pressure on Google to address complaints that the company favors its own products in search results over its rivals’ services.
And in a sign that the pressure in Europe would probably expand to other areas of Google’s business, the antitrust regulator, Margrethe Vestager, also said she had opened a formal antitrust investigation into the company’s Android smartphone software.
“If the investigation confirmed our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe,” said Ms. Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner, referring to Google’s search practices.
The whole story makes it more probable for EU to setup its giant search engine against Google similar to the one done by Russians using their own Yandex engine. Other great search engine is Baidu (by Chinese) which has easily replaced google in China.
