DNS - European Commission Competition Officials Investigate Allegations about Google

European officials are continuing to investigate allegations of "anti-competitive conduct" following the lodging of complaints earlier this year about Google (News - Alert).

Foundem, a U.K.-based shopping comparison site, filed a complaint with the European Commission, accusing Google of posing "an immediate threat to competition and innovation."

A similar complaint was filed by the French legal search engine ejustice.fr.

The search engines questioned whether Google search results unfairly demote competitors' sites.

"I am looking at the allegations very carefully," Joaquín Almunia, European commissioner for competition policy, said in a speech today in London.

Almunia discussed other technology issues, too - including the importance of the digital sector to Europe's economy.

"The digital economy has been singled out in our Europe 2020 growth strategy as one of the pillars of economic recovery," Almunia said. "This means that it is our political mandate to ensure that this sector grows to its full potential."

As technology moves forward, Alumina said that regulatory policy must support and complement competition policy in creating the appropriate environment for the digital economy.

State intervention might be needed to achieve public interest objectives, such as universal access to basic services, scientific and artistic creation, regional cohesion or privacy and safety protection, Alumina said.

In addition, the EC is now preparing a recommendation for Next Generation Access networks that encourage the development of fast broadband across Europe.

"The new regulation will not be a regulatory holiday for the big telecom operators. We will not lose the benefits of a decade of liberalization by creating new private monopolies. The proposed new regulatory framework will continue to mandate access to the network when a dominant player operates in a market," Alumina said.

In the current direction of the industry, mobile devices are becoming prevalent and are turning into entire eco-systems where users can access all the services they need and application providers can supply all the services they can think of, Alumina said.

In addition, the new cloud business model aims to provide integrated communication, data storage, data management and application services to businesses, all in one service, Alumina added.

"We cannot and should not predict the way these environments will develop. Some companies favor open and interoperable systems. Others develop closed environments and others navigate between the two," Alumina said. "The markets should decide which business models prevail. The task of competition authorities will remain to ensure that no market is foreclosed to competitors better able to serve their final users."

Alumina said that a combination of competitive markets in infrastructure and open standards that fostered the development of cloud services.

And the internet would not be the success it is today, had it not been built on open, interoperable standards and protocols, he added.

"These brought the freedom to innovate to everyone, from the largest multinational to the self employed mom in her garage," Alumina said.