MAIS ACUSAÇÕES NAS CORTES EUROPÉIAS CONTRA O GOOGLE

New Complaints Filed Against Google in Europe

BY N YORK TIMES


By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: February 23, 2010

Google faces European antitrust scrutiny after three companies filed complaints about what they consider unfair competition.

A British price-comparison site called Foundem, a French legal search engine called Ejustice.fr and a Microsoft service called Ciao From Bing, brought complaints to the European Commission, Google said Tuesday in a posting.

Foundem and Ejustice.fr complained that Google plays down their sites in its search results, Google said. Ciao From Bing, a former partner of Google, was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. That company’s complaint relates to Google’s terms and conditions, Google said. Ciao originally took its complaint to Germany’s antitrust agency and the case was transferred to the European Commission, Google said.

“At this stage this is a fact-finding exercise, and we’re happy to answer the commission’s questions,” Google said in a statement. “We are happy to explain our products and technology, and are very confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as within European competition law.”

Ciao, Ejustice.fr and Foundem did not immediately answer e-mail inquiries.