News Corp calls on EU regulator to reconsider Google settlement
NEWS CORP, publisher of The Sun, The Times and The Wall Street Journal, has attacked Google’s European dominance, labelling the search giant’s offering a “platform of piracy”.
In a letter last week to European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said Google had changed from “a company that is ‘open’ to one that is selectively closed and willing to exploit its dominant market position to stifle competition”.
Google has been the target of a European Commission investigation since November 2010, when more than a dozen complainants, including Microsoft, accused the company of promoting its own services at their expense.
In February, Google and the EU came to a proposed settlement in which Google would avoid a billion-dollar fine by displaying the search results of rivals more prominently.
The settlement has yet to be agreed and Almunia has warned it may drag on beyond his term which ends in October.
Google labelled Thomson’s comments “absolutely wrong”.