NYT: "Pressure Grows on Europe to Act Against Google"

The New York Times reports that as EU antitrust investigators are preparing final recommendations in the European Commission’s case against Google, consumers groups continue to voice their concern.

The director general of the European Consumers’ Organization (which includes consumer groups from 31 European countries) wrote a letter to the EU’s antitrust commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, saying that Google “may have abused its position in the search market to direct users to its own services and secondly to reduce the visibility of competing Web sites and services.”

Thomas Vinje, counsel to FairSearch, commented that Google has been “unfairly directing consumers to Google’s own products and away from other providers of specialized search,” and that had put at stake “the future of innovation online” and “the ability of small firms throughout Europe to compete on a level playing field.”