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German Companies Filing Anti-Trust Actions Against Google 
By: Jordan McCollum 2010-01-19 So it only takes one high-ranking government official calling Google a monopoly to have German companies jump on an anti-trust bandwagon, eh? Who'dathunkit? Yep, after Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said, All in all, whats taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly, similar to Microsoft, the Federation of Newspaper Publishers, online mapping company Euro-Cities and even Microsoft-owned Ciao have filed complaints against Google with the German government. The complaints have been lodged with the Bundeskartellamt, the Federal Cartel Office. The office is independent, but falls under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology"not Leutheusser-Schnarrenbergers ministry. The three complaints allege that various Google practices and products make it impossible for others to compete in that industry. The Federation of Newspaper Publishers resurrects everyones favorite anti-Google News argument against using snippets in their results. (Remember, however, that three years ago, Belgian courts actually upheld this argument.) Online mapping competitor Euro-Cities argues that Googles free embeddable maps prohibit competition against Euro-Cities paid services. And Ciao, who was bought in 2005 and then their parent company was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, is trying to get out of a display-advertising contract with Google AdSense, stating that the contract is overly restrictive. As both paidContent and Search Engine Land point out, these complaints would probably bear no merit if they were filed against smaller, less powerful competitors. However, thats kind of the point, isnt it? While we cant deny that Google has a lot of services and marketshare, it does seem that these complaints look like evidence that the free market at work. A company that can afford to offer a free service is putting a paid one out of business? Maybe its time to rethink your business model, not sue. (And newspapers? Hello, robots.txt.) What do you think? Does Google have anything to worry about with these suits? Comments Tag: Google, legal Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Reddit |  Furl Have a bookmark! -  About the Author: Jordan McCollum is a staff writer for the popular marketing blog Marketing Pilgrim. She has worked in search engine optimization with clients including 3M, Little Giant Ladders and ADP. After graduating from Brigham Young University, Jordan joined the SEO copywriting team at the Internet marketing firm 10x Marketing. After 10x closed its doors in December 2006, Jordan became a freelance writer and Internet marketing consultant specializing in SEO. She also has extensive experience with web analytics, conversion rate enhancement and e-mail marketing. |
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