Google under investigation by EC

Google is being investigated by The European Commission (EC) following complaints about its behaviour.

The EC has received complaints from three companies including UK price comparison site, Foundem, a French legal search engine called ejustice.fr, and Microsoft’s Ciao! from Bing.

Google senior competition counsel Julia Holtz says in a blog post today that it will be “providing feedback and additional information” in response to the complaints and remains “confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law”.

Google adds that while each complaint is slightly different, the suggestion is that Google’s ranking system demotes companies such as Foundem because they are direct competition.

The internet giant states that “this is not the case” and it believes its business reflects Google’s commitment to users’ interests and competing fairly in the market.

Seperately, Google has entered the UK’s multi-million-pound comparison market after launching a trial service letting consumers compare credit cards.

Google dropped out of the first position in the Business Superbrands Top 500 survey, while its rival Microsoft replaces it at the top of the list.