INTERNET : GOOGLE FACES EU ANTI-TRUST PROBE.

Google, the US group which controls 90% of the search engine market, has been subject to a preliminary examination by the European Commission following complaints lodged by three web sites, which accuse the company of abuse of dominant position in the online advertising and search market. On 24 February, the Commission specified that it has not opened a formal investigation for the time being, but that it had sent a letter to Google, at the beginning of February, in which it asked the company to comment on the allegations of the plaintiffs.

The French legal search engine ejustice.fr and the UK price comparison site Foundem claim that Google's search algorithms demote their sites by systematically placing them at the end of search results because they are competing against it. The Commission has asked Google a series of questions relating to the way in which its search functions operate and to its advertising sales methods. Another price comparison site, Ciao!, which belongs to Microsoft - which had initially protested to the German authorities over the general conditions surrounding Google's AdSense programme - has transferred its complaint to the Commission.

"HARD COMPUTER SCIENCE PROBLEM"

This information was supplied by Google, on 23 February, on one of its blogs. The company said it was certain that it complied with EU competition law. It refuted the allegations, arguing that "we are the first to admit that our search is not perfect, but it's a very hard computer science problem...