Europe these days is busy challenging the rulers in technology, and is surprisingly winning the battle too. Latest on the list is Google, which is charged of abusing its dominance in the search market to hurt rivals across a range of industries. The officials of Google are trying their best to find a way out or else they will have to pay a fine of $4 billion in order to continue services in Europe. Google is not the first one who has become target of European regulators, but Facebook, Apple and Microsoft too have gone through the same phase in the past. Therefore, cracking a deal here is not going to be easy for Google. And, though the chances are low, even if Google succeeds in settling the anti-trust case, more problems awaits as investigations into its new privacy policy and its Android operating system for phones and tablets are on its way. It is not that Google is facing these issues for the first time, it has faced such issues in the past by the American regulators too, but the problem is that the European laws are stricter and fines are huge. Furthermore, the European courts are partial towards the government. “The pipeline is packed with these cases,” said Nicolas Petit, a professor at Belgium’s University of Liege Law School who watches the technology industry closely. Joaquin Almunia, a former Spanish labor leader and onetime Socialist candidate for prime minister is the European Union’s top antitrust enforcer, is trying his best to get the matter negotiated between European regulators and Google as he thinks this will be the best option for both. “What was Google’s motto at the beginning? ‘Don’t be evil?’ ” Almunia said in an interview at his office here, the headquarters of the E.U. “I hope it continues to be important.” In reply to the charges put against Google, one of its spokesperson in Brussels said, “”We continue to work cooperatively with the European Commission.” European regulator Almunia and his office have pointed out four potential abuses of dominance. Out of the four that concerns Alumnia the most is the abuse that says Google may be altering its results in a way that keeps users from having access to the best possible services, especially ones that compete with Google’s offerings.
