According to a European Commission questionnaire, EU antitrust regulators asked Google Inc's rivals whether decreasing rankings affected the number of organic and non-organic traffic generated by visitors in their sites. This was after the EU regulators intensified scrutiny of how search results are ranked by Google.
The EU competition authority demanded more concessions from Google after raising concerns on blocking its competitors in search results. The said demand was written in a two-page document seen by Reuters.
According to Joaquin Almunia, commissioner of the European Competition authority, Google offered a compromise earlier this year to have its own products labeled in search results. The offer also included easily moving from Google's site to a rival platform and providing links to at least three rival portals. However, Almunia said the compromise was not enough to release the world's most popular search engine from the intensified scrutiny.
Almunia's comments echoed complaints from Foundem, a British price comparison website. The said comments also reverberated that of Expedia's, a German publisher and online travel site. Expedia said that the compromise offered by Google would only increase its dominance in search results.
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