European Union Continues Investigation into Google's Possible Antitrust Abuses

The New York Times reports that European antitrust investigators are asking advertisers to provide information about Google via a confidential questionnaire.  The questionnaire “seeks to ascertain whether Google manipulated search results and used its popular platform to keep business and disadvantage rivals in online advertising and Internet search.”

The New York Times reports that:

“In a second questionnaire sent to so-called vertical search services — Web sites dedicated to specialized activities like legal advice or comparative shopping — investigators asked about the amount of traffic directed to their sites each year by Google compared with Bing, which is owned by Microsoft, and by Yahoo… Investigators also directly addressed whether Google was using technology that lowers the visibility of rival sites.”

These are similar to concerns of FairSearch.org members that if Google is allowed to acquire ITA Software, it will use this critical online travel industry technology to steer consumers to its own service over that of all competitors’, including those who will be reliant on Google for renewals and upgrades for continued use of ITA for flight search.

Huge story, right?  You can check the full article out today on the homepage of The New York Times or in tomorrow’s print version of The International Herald Tribune.

Or, you can always use Google news – but make sure to look closely.  According to this screen grab it isn’t as big a Google story as say, “Andoid Ice Cream Sandwich Slated for Google I/O” in eWeek, or “Is Google after an H 264 free lunch?” on the ZDNet blog.