Google: Improving Quality Isn’t Anti-Competitive

Google has responded to accusations of antitrust behavior from the EU. The search giant doesn't believe it has done anything wrong and that the EU is "wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics."

Google has always worked to improve its services, creating new ways to provide better answers and show more useful ads. We’ve taken seriously the concerns in the European Commission’s Statement of Objections (SO) that our innovations are anti-competitive. The response we filed today shows why we believe those allegations are incorrect, and why we believe that Google increases choice for European consumers and offers valuable opportunities for businesses of all sizes.

The EU has a very simple checklist to determine if a company engages in anti-competitive behavior:

1. Are you a European company?
If No, then you are anti-competitive.

If Yes, Are you opposed to the EU? Yes - Anti-competitive, No - not anti-competitive

The EU has never met a problem that they can't fix with new regulations or fines

I dont know much about how Google ads work since for some reason I just dont see any *cough*, but is the general outline here that the EU thinks it's unfair that Google shows so many ads that Google themselves sponsor? And Google is claiming that they arent downranking competitor ads, it just so happens to be that Google ads tend to rank highest?

So say that I for instance call a doctor that resides in a medical building - That doctor's office answers the phone and books me an appointment to see their doctor without recommending other doctors in the building first.

Is that anticompetitive?

Is that what we're talking about here?

This brings a new meaning to the phrase "Freedom isn't free.".