Rivals seek tough European Union antitrust action on Google

BRUSSELS — A coalition of Google's competitors urged the European Union's antitrust watchdog Tuesday to reject the Internet giant's proposed concessions on displaying search results.

"It would be better to do nothing than to accept Google's proposals," said Thomas Vinje of FairSearch, a group of 17 companies including Microsoft and TripAdvisor. "The proposals would make things worse rather than better," he insisted.

The European Commission, the bloc's antitrust authority, has been investigating since 2010 whether Google is abusing its dominant market position and stifling competition. It pointed out several areas of concern, which Google is trying to address mainly by changing the way it displays search results.

Google Inc.'s search engine enjoys a near-monopoly in Europe with a market share of about 90 percent, which gives it a huge edge over competitors to promote its own services such as Google News, Google Maps or its shopping and flight search functions.

Complainants in the case had two months ending this week to provide the EU with feedback to the proposed remedies. The body's antitrust chief, Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, already hinted after the first month of the so-called market test that Google would be asked to do more to appease the competition concerns.

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