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Google’s Eric Schmidt offers Almunia concessions to end EU probe

By  |  July 2, 2012

An EU spokesman has confirmed that Google CEO Eric Schmidt sent EU competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia a letter outlining the search company’s concessions. The concessions are to end an EU probe of Google’s alleged unfair business practices in discriminating against rivals in its searches. Although Google’s offerings have not been disclosed, they address the four areas Almunia highlighted as raising competition concerns: (1) Google giving its own services preference in search results; (2) copied content from rival travel and restaurant review websites appearing in Google search results; (3) advertising agreements with websites; (4) advertising agreements with software developers.

If the European Commission ultimately decides that Google’s concessions do not address all of its concerns, it will file a formal antitrust complaint.

Full content: Bloomberg Businessweek

 

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