The Google boss, Sundar Pichai, will meet with the European Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, in Brussels next week. This is according to a source close to the affair.
This meeting will take place despite the fact that the European competition services have been investigating the American Internet giant for abuse of a dominant position in online research for years. The case has not yet been resolved: the solutions the internet giant has put forward to resolve the case have been refused three times.
Mrs Vestager addressed the group last year in a “complaints communication” which listed her accusations. She claims the American giant “systematically favourises its own price comparison product on its pages”, compared to competing price comparison services like Keikoo.
Google responded at the end of August, saying that Brussels’ conclusions were “way out” and based “on a bad evaluation of the market”. If no agreement is reached, the group risks a fine of several billion euros.
As well as the first investigation into online research, which dates back to 2010, the European Competition services opened a second investigation in April. This one will look at the group’s mobile operating system, Android. This software, used by a series of brands, is installed on 80% of the smartphones in the world.
(Source: Belga)
