When we hear about anti-competitive lawsuits against a corporation in Europe, that is usually Microsoft with its endless Windows browser bundling, but this time around Microsoft is the one who filed a lawsuit and the defendant is Google.
A 17-member coalition of competitor-companies including Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, TripAdvisor and Expedia have united under the Fairsearch.org initiative to sue Google for that it “uses deceptive conduct to lockout competition in mobile.”
The coalition accuses the search company of using the free Android as a vessel to promote its search and other services (like YouTube) and lock users into them.
A 17-member coalition of competitor-companies including Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, TripAdvisor and Expedia have united under the Fairsearch.org initiative to sue Google for that it “uses deceptive conduct to lockout competition in mobile.”
The coalition accuses the search company of using the free Android as a vessel to promote its search and other services (like YouTube) and lock users into them.
Fairsearch accuses Google of violating several criteria for transparent and ethical search, including the ability to let consumers choose which services to use. Google allegedly imposes restrictions on services when using the Android platform, giving greater priority to the ones it provides.
Fairsearch also accuses Google of manipulating the search results with its search algorithm, which gives precedence to Google's own sites and services, or provides results which are biased towards advertisers and away from the best interests of consumers.
In a message to the European Commission, the coalitions' counsel Thomas Vinje accused Google of deceiving its partners regarding the Android mobile OS by trying to "monopolize the mobile market, and control consumer data. Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google’s Android operating system."
While this may, in large part, be an almost desperate attempt by the 17 companies to delve away at Google's 98%(!) search dominance on mobiles, it does bring to light several questions in regards to how much we trust the giant to provide unbiased search results.
So far it's just a bunch of big words from Fairsearch, as there is no trial date set or official response from Google, but we'll let you know as this story develops.
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