Google has fired back at antitrust allegations leveled
against the search engine giant by the European Commission in April.
The commission alleges that Google has abused its dominant
position in the European Internet search market “by systematically favoring its
own comparison shopping product,” called Google Shopping, in its search results
pages.
In a response Thursday, Google disputed the charge,
saying the commission’s complaint, called a statement of objections, fails to
establish that Google's display of paid ads from merchants diverts ads from
other shopping services.
To the contrary, “The universe of shopping services has seen
an enormous increase in traffic from Google,” the company argued. Google said
that it has delivered more than 20 billion free clicks to product aggregators
over the past decade in countries within the purview of the European
Commission.
According to the Guardian newspaper, the commission's case
against Google Shopping is seen as the opening salvo. European regulators are
examining other Google services, including travel price comparisons.
A Google search for “plane tickets” Thursday brought up a
writable Google Flights search field as the second item on the page. The
remaining content on the page, including links to Trip Advisor, Kayak and
Expedia, wasn't writable.
Expedia and Trip Advisor are members of the advocacy group
FairSearch.org, which says its mission is to defend competition in online and
mobile searches.
“Consumers have been harmed — and paid higher prices —
because Google has cornered the shopping comparison market,” FairSearch said in
a statement Thursday, referencing the European Commission case.