Google Offers Concessions in EU Antitrust Case

In an effort to avoid fines, Google has proposed concessions to its rivals and European antitrust authorities.

Reuters describes the concessions in a way that seems natural—but it’s worth considering what these concessions actually mean. I’ve commented on two of them; I invite you to consider the others.

The EU competition authority said on Thursday Google's proposals included marking out its services from rival products in Internet search results and providing links to at least three competing search engines.

This one’s pretty clear: Google would be forced to advertise its competitors. That means Google would have to use its resources and the relationships it’s developed with its European users to steer those users away from Google. But a business’s existence, like a human life , is a process of working to keep itself in existence; this is bleeding Google's efforts to support its rivals at its own expense.

Or at least that’s what it would do if it actually helps the rivals. But lest we forget, Google is a search engine, and it does link to its rivals, voluntarily—this will only make those links more prominent, and perhaps give sites that closely compete with Google’s specialized services more prominence as compared to those that don’t. Users already stick with Google because Google is good , and they would remain free to do so.

Specialized websites will be able to opt out from the use of all their content in Google's own specialized search services and will also be able to mark out specific categories of information to prevent its use by Google.

As is well known, Google already honors requests to exclude sites or directories from its databases. What this evidently means is that specialized websites will be able to fine-tune what they allow Google to do with their content. So, for example, a site offering restaurant reviews would apparently be able to prohibit Google from including its reviews on a page listing reviews of a given restaurant from around the Web, while still having that its own page about that restaurant come up when you run a Google search on the restaurant’s name.

Now, copyright implies that websites should be able to exclude their content from Google. But that’s addressed by letting them opt out of Google altogether.

The notion that sites are entitled to be included in the main Google Web search without letting Google use their information elsewhere implies that sites have a right to appear in that search database—a right that’s violated if they can’t stay in that database while excluding themselves from other Google services. They have no such right. Inclusion in that database is a service Google offers—one most websites are eager to receive. To claim a right to be included on any terms other than those Google willingly sets, is to claim a right to be served by Google and the people who work for it, run it, and invest in it—even if they don’t want to serve you.

Here’s the Reuters article. What do you make of the other concessions?

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