Mediarun Search Marketing News

SEO company tactics could come under scrutiny from EU

July 7th 2010

Search Engine Optimisation News

The EU could take a more proactive role when it comes to regulating search engine giant Google. According to the European Commission, it is investigating a number of allegations levelled against Google relating to "anti-competitive conduct".

Joaquin Almunia, the EU's competition commissioner, said that the investigation of Google is in its early stages, but claimed that the EU would fast-track it because of the importance of competition in the search engine marketing sector.

She claimed during a speech that the European Commission would be specifically checking to see if Google was manipulating search engine results listings - thereby undermining the search engine marketing efforts of practically every SEO Company on the planet.

Ms Almunia also questioned whether simple transparency was enough to ensure Google was not preventing competition in the search engine marketplace.

The number of companies filing complaints against Google appears to be on the increase, with UK price-comparison site Foundem, French legal search engine Ejustice.fr and Microsoft's Ciao all officially questioning the search giant's practices.

Julia Holtz, a senior competition counsel at Google said: "With success comes scrutiny.

"We have a good case.

Meanwhile, Matthew Readings, a partner in the London office of law firm Shearman & Sterling, said: "Almunia's comments show that Google is firmly on the commission’s radar but it doesn't mean that enforcement action is imminent.

"Intervention in technology markets is not straightforward. The real issue is not so much Google's current market share, rather how online markets will develop and how contestable they are to competitors."

Any action taken by the European Commission could have a dramatic effect on practically every SEO Company around the world.

Google still has the largest market share in the search engine sector and this looks unlikely to change in the near future. The firm is also making headway in other markets, including online advertising, video distribution, email services, online office applications and digital book aggregation. So, if Google's future is anything like Microsoft's when it was top dog in the world of home computing, you can expect a few more anti-competition allegations and lawsuits.

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