EU Tells Google To Try Harder

It's official: on Wednesday, in a formal Statement of Objections, the European Union's antitrust chief formally accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the web search arena.

The European Commission is focused on Google's alleged practice of skewing search results to divert users of Google's search engine to other Google-owned websites, products, and services, particularly travel, shopping, and navigation websites. In addition, the EC is separately investigating allegations of alleged agreements between Google and mobile device manufacturers related to Google's Android platform – it is claimed that such phone manufacturers that agree to use Google's open-source Android platform face contractual obligations to place Google's other apps in prominent positions on the mobile devices. Furthermore, Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner, has indicated that the inquiry may expand over time.