Microsoft lawsuit: Google allegedly abusing dominant position
Microsoft filed a competition complaint against competitor Google before the EU Commission in Brussels on Thursday. The software group accuses Google of doing everything it can to consolidate its dominance in the online search and search engine advertising markets at the expense of European consumers.
Microsoft, for its part, operates the Bing search engine, which competes with Google. The EU Commission had already opened proceedings against Google in November 2010. The EU competition authorities are investigating indications that the company - possibly intentionally - displayed the offers of other search services too far down the list of results for product queries. Instead, Google had placed its own services in a prominent position below the search results. The IT giant may also have driven up prices for online advertising.
A Google spokesman said in a first reaction according to SDA in Hamburg, one is not surprised by this step of Microsoft. The company had already been among the complainants in Brussels with its subsidiary, the consumer portal Ciao.de.
