Google offers to promote rivals to avoid European Commission court case
Google has offered to change its search to promote web services from rivals, as it looks to avoid a European Commission court case which could lead to a $5bn fine.
This is the second settlement offer made by Google that it abuses its dominance of the general web search market to give its own specialist services dominance over those of competitors.
According to Reuters, the EU executive is also concerned that Google might have put restrictions on advertisers and advertising to prevent them from moving their online campaigns to competing search engines.
An earlier offer to 'mark out' its services from rival products in internet search results was rejected both by rivals and by the European Commission, the European Union's antitrust regulator, for not going far enough.
The rejected offer also saw Google propose to provide links to at least three competing search engines, and to make it so it would be easier for advertisers to transfer their search advertising campaigns to rival platforms.
This week's new proposal comes two months after the Commission asked the search engine for more measures to sooth concerns that it was blocking competitors, including Microsoft, in web search results.
Google spokesman Al Verney said: "Our proposal to the European Commission addresses their four areas of concern. We continue to work with the Commission to settle this case."
A spokesman for competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia told the Telegraph: “The Commission received a proposal from Google and is assessing it.”
Details in the new offer have not been made public.