Google offers to advertise for its rivals in a bid to avoid antitrust concerns

After grabbing some 90% of the search market in Europe, you’d think the last thing Google would offer to do is promote the services of its competitors. But that’s what it’s proposed, telling European legislators that it is willing to display links to competing services in search results in as prominent a place as it gives to its own G-products.

The proposal comes as a response to the European Commission’s investigations into the tech giant, which started in 2010 after it received 17 formal complaints that Google may be abusing its monopoly in search and online advertising. In a statement, the commission said it is now looking for feedback on Google’s proposals before continuing with its investigations. So, what exactly has Google offered to do?

• Make the fact that the links to its own services, like Google Maps, Places and Shopping, are actually promoted, and don’t occur organically. This, Google says, would involve introducing a clear distinctive feature (like a frame) to make it easier for users to distinguish its own services from ordinary web results.
• Display links to “three rival specialised search services” close to its own services, in a place that is clearly visible to users.
• Offer websites the option to opt-out from using their content in search, or limit the amount of information indexed by Google’s bots, but not punish them in the rankings if they do so.
• Offer newspaper publishers the ability to control how their content is displayed in Google News, on a page by page basis.
• Stop requiring publishers to source online ads exclusively from Google in its agreements with them.
• Allow advertisers to manage campaigns across rival search advertising platforms.

These changes would only apply for users in Europe for the next five years, but if they’re accepted, they would become legally binding — if Google breaks its commitment, it could be liable to a fine of up to 10% of its global revenue.

The investigation’s preliminary findings suggested that Google may be giving links to its own services preferential treatment in search results, as well as using the content of other websites without consent, locking publishers in agreements which require them to run most of their search ads through Google Adwords and making it difficult to transfer campaigns across to competing services. The commission is asking the public for their opinions on Google’s offer, and whether or not they think the changes would fix the problems highlighted by the initial findings.

It’s likely the commission will be hearing from Google’s more vocal rivals, including Microsoft, which has been not-so-subtle in its claims of abuse with campaigns like Scroogled suggesting Google can’t be trusted. The company, which runs rival search engine Bing along with competing products like Bing Maps and Windows Phone, was also part of the group which recently filed a complaint with the commission about Android. The group, which also includes Nokia, Oracle, TripAdvisor and Expedia, claims Google’s mobile operating system is being used as a “Trojan Horse” in order to make sure manufacturers pre-install Google apps on their phones.