Google’s competitors have criticized the company’s recent proposals to settle its long-running antitrust case with the European Commission. Google has also been accused of slowing down the arbitration process. The latter has so far ground on for 3 years and might not be resolved before next March.



The paper outlining Google’s proposals is being considered by 125 outfits across Europe at the moment. Although the proposals are supposed to be confidential, the reporters saw two separate copies of them, through which the tech giant is trying to avoid a legal battle with Joaquín Almunia, the European Commission’s antitrust chief. The latter announced three years ago that Google was potentially abusing its monopoly position on Internet search in the EU, where it has more than 90% of traffic.

Under the leaked proposals, the company would continue to provide links to its own websites – Google Maps, YouTube and shopping – while giving its rivals only limited exposure. For example, on desktop searches, the rival websites would be represented as small links below Google’s larger links, and the users will even have an option to hide them. On mobile devices, there would be a link to “other sites” beside Google’s links at the top of searches – it means that users would have to click the link to see non-Google offerings.

Of course, Google proposals were dismissed by its competitors, who also rejected its earlier suggestions in April, claiming that the company could still use its monopoly in search to corner the separate markets of paid shopping and maps searches.

The latest Google proposals were sent out to 125 interested parties for comment, with the company saying they have made significant changes in attempt to address the European Commission’s concerns. Google said that they tried to greatly increase the visibility of rival services and addressed other specific issues.

However, the rivals wonder why the company didn’t publish both revised proposal and data that supports it for everyone to be able to comment on. As such, they claim that the tech giant had slowed down the resolution process.

Within the last three years, the two sides have been negotiating Google attempts to avoid a statement of objections. This could lead to a fine and court-imposed sanctions on how it represented the results. Now the 125 groups have until 28 November to respond to the proposals.