The European Commission expanded its investigation of Google on Friday by adding two additional German cases. The first includes complaints by a large group of newspaper publishers and the second has to do with an online mapping company.
Back in November, Joaquin Almunia, the European competition commissioner announced that a wide-ranging case was being brought against Google to determine if the company had given preferential treatment to its services when ranking search results. More so, the commission was working to determine whether it discriminated against competitors.
By taking on these German cases, Mr. Almunia will be able to gain access to a considerable amount of evidence considering 80% of German Internet users opt to search on Google. This extra evidence, some suggest, could help Almunia make his case.
Google isn’t too worried about the European Commission taking the cases over. They see it as procedural happenings because the commission typically takes over cases from member countries.
“We continue to work cooperatively with the commission and national regulators, explaining many aspects of our business. There’s always going to be room for improvement, so we are working to address any concerns,” a Google spokesman, Al Verney, said to the New York Times.
The publishers have accused Google of manipulating search rankings. They are calling on Google to reveal its algorithm and stop giving preference to its services. The publishers are also accusing Google of not paying them because Google made a considerable amount of money placing ads near the stories’ links.
“We appreciate that the E.C. is now investigating the case as it could be one of the most important topics for the digital press in the coming years,” the publishers said in a statement. “From our point of view Google is no longer a mere search engine but filling the result pages with more and more own content,” they said. “Thus Google is no longer an intermediary but a direct competitor.”
The mapping company, Euro-Cities, is complaining about the free implementation of Google Maps on other websites on the Internet. They argue that it is destroying their business model.
There are some that argue that these cases were tacked on to Almunia’s other claims because he wants to legitimize the investigation. It was believed, before, that all of those companies complaining were in some part connected to Microsoft. By bringing these other groups on board, it shows people that it’s not just Microsoft complaining, but many different groups.
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