Why Expedia, Trivago and Kelkoo hit Google in Brussels
A group of 165 companies and associations has asked the EU for urgent antitrust action against Google. The request is contained in a letter signed by 135 online service platforms including Expedia, Trivago, Kelkoo, Stepstone and Foundem.
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European publishers support the appeal of companies and technology associations to the EU Commission for immediate action against Google's self-preference practices, to the detriment of competition and consumers. The associations of publishers of newspapers and magazines, Enpa and Emma, and the Council of European publishers (Epc) write this in a joint note.
The tech companies sent a letter, with 165 signatories, to the EU Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, inviting her to ensure Google's compliance with the 2017 EU Commission sanctions for abuse of dominant position in promoting the Google Search product, then renamed Google Shopping.
So far, according to companies and publishers, Google has not complied with the measures imposed by the EU. Furthermore, further investigations are underway on the favorable positioning, in the search engine, of various specialized big tech services, for job searches, flights, hotels, accommodation and local information. Companies and associations therefore urge the Commission to take all necessary measures to ensure competition.
"We strongly support the Commission's plans to regulate the web giants more strictly," said Ilias Konteas, executive director of Enpa and Emma. "However, the quickest, most natural and effective solution to Google's fundamental problem of self-preference is a rigorous application of the fair treatment measures that were already imposed in the 2017 competition decision," he added.
As mentioned, a group of 165 companies and associations has asked the European Union for urgent antitrust action against Google. The request is contained in a letter, consulted by the Reuters agency and signed by 135 online service platforms including Expedia, Trivago, Kelkoo, Stepstone and Foundem.
The document calls on the Commission to take immediate action to prevent Google from favoring its services in search engine results. In particular, according to the signatories, Big G would give greater prominence to its comparison solutions in the travel, work and hospitality sectors, inserting them in the boxes just below the search mask (so-called One-Box).
The Mountain View giant has always denied privileging its services to the detriment of rival ones, arguing that competition on the web is just a click away and that its dominance is therefore solely due to user preferences. "People expect from Google the most relevant and quality search results, results they can trust," a Google spokesperson pointed out today. "They don't expect us to give preference to specific companies or commercial competitors, or that we stop offering useful services that allow greater choice and competition in Europe. " According to the group of 165, however, Google "does not compete fairly" and with the One-Box technique "artificially keeps users within its ecosystem, preventing them from visiting alternative and more relevant services" to requests.
The letter is addressed to the Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, who over the years has hit Google's anti-competitive practices with fines of 8.3 billion euros. So far, however, economic sanctions do not seem to have undermined the dominance of American big tech, Mf / Milano Finanza wrote : "Consequently, the European Commission is preparing to launch a new package of regulations, the Digital Services Act, to equip itself with more effective antitrust tools able to oblige Google & co. to open their platforms to competition ".
According to the 165 signatories of the appeal, however, this intervention could come too late and some operators "may not have the strength and resources to resist until this discipline really takes effect".
The Commission's proposal for the Digital Services Act will arrive on December 2, but the legislative process of adoption could last for months, if not years. However, it must be said that the European tightening on big tech seems to enjoy the support of all the Member States except Ireland, where many US giants have established their European headquarters.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/perche-expedia-trivago-e-kelkoo-picchiano-contro-google-a-bruxelles/ on Thu, 12 Nov 2020 14:09:58 +0000.