The Hill News

In recent years, the Internet search giant Google has been suffering from a bunch of legal headaches. First, Oracle or American Society of Media Photographers sued the giant for patent and copyright infringements. Then later it was confronted with number of antitrust probes into its acquisition of companies. Now the search powerhouse faces investigations into violation of the EU and U.S. competition rules for abusing its dominant position on two continents in parallel. The dominant market position is illegal neither according to the EU rules on competition and nor according to the US antitrust law.

What is unlawful is the abuse of such position aiming to stifle the competition. But does Google really carry on a predatory business?

Google has a strong position in the U.S. and an even stronger one in Europe. Its share of online searches accounts for two-thirds in the U.S. and more than 80% in Europe. It comes therefore as no surprise that the gia! nt’s success caused anxiety among its competitors and attracted enormous attention of regulators. A testament to these concerns has been the most recent complaint surrounding the damage other companies say they have suffered by being relegated in Google’s search rankings compared to Google’s own services.

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