European politicians warn Google's market dominance is threatening creativity
A debate has ignited in the European Parliament over over the market dominance now being exerted by Google, whose increasingly dominant market position in search, online advertising and video leaves others in the creative industries at the mercy of its business model.
Google now accounts for a 95 per cent of the European search market and has been subject to a number of anti-trust investigations with independent music labels feeling coerced into accepting low margins offered by Google.
Ana Gomes MEP for the Social Democrat group at the European Parliament, said: “For our creative sector, the threat today and in the immediate future comes not from the destabilisation of the banking system; instead, our artists and creative businesses are threatened by one company whose dominant position imposes its business model on the entire market: Google.
“The creative industries are in a fix. Like other businesses, Google uses free or low-cost third party content to attract consumers. However, because of its market dominance, Google effectively sets the rules of the market in its favour.”
Gomes also voiced concern at Google’s habit of directing traffic to its own services, directing people away from relevant content toward those offering the greatest profit. She said: “Google directs consumers, who expect to be served with search results that are most relevant to them, to the services that have the greatest benefit for Google’s spectacular profit. Google is thereby effectively shutting down access to those European artists and creative businesses who don’t want to accept Google’s conditions.”
As a result Gomes is calling on European Commission president Manuel Barrosso to refuse a settlement offer from Google in its ongoing anti-trust investigation and instead defer a decision on giving legal endorsement to Google’s activities.