User-generated complaints

Google/EC: Google has made it. The internet giant has joined the exclusive club of the European Union’s Big Satans. After the likes of Microsoft , Intel - or IBM in a more distant past - it has become the latest US technology giant to be targeted by Brussels for dominating its market. No company would seek an EU inquiry. But the informal probe is not necessarily bad news for Google, which has been subjected to months of criticism, threats and setbacks in several European countries. An EU-wide ruling could clarify its position and help to end the scattered legal and political challenges it is facing across Europe.

Contrary to previous EU targets, Google has been remarkably open about the inquiry, which it publicised on a company blog, complete with links to newspaper stories and documents setting out the three plaintiffs’ case in detail. Then again, the EU authorities are still trying to determine whether the complaints have any merit.

Given Google’s dominance of internet search, criticism of its position is not surprising. But the complaints are markedly different from those commonly made against Microsoft. Google's usual critics are not competitors but users - even though in the latest case one of them, Ciao, is owned by Microsoft. These users — whether niche search engines, e-commerce sites, publishers and other content providers — basically want a bigger piece of the Google pie. They don’t object to Google’s business, and they certainly don’t want it to shrink or disappear.

If the EU decides to go ahead with a formal probe, it will have to walk a fine line between reining in Google and not hurting its clients. This would be the first time the EU has ruled on the company's competitive position. But it has already examined -- and cleared -- Google's advertising business when it authorised the acquisition of digital marketing company DoubleClick in 2008.

Google would probably welcome an EU-wide ruling on the way it does business. But it will take months, if not years, before it is issued. Until then, Google will have to keep navigating between dominance and modesty.