EU rejects (again) anti-monopoly agreement … – Business Journal – Portugal

The new competition arguments on abuse of a dominant position by Google led the European Commission to seek “new solutions” to the technological giant, thus taking a step back in the agreement in principle reached in February.

The European Commission will require a new agreement with Google to close the biggest case of abuse of dominant position in recent years, advances this Tuesday the international press.

Joaquin Almunia, European commissioner for competition, asked in an interview with Bloomberg TV, “new solutions” to close the case of possible monopoly in the search engines on the internet market. “Some complainants (rivals Google) presented new arguments and data that we analyze. Consider concerns that are justified,” said Almunia.

This position by the European Commission represents a setback, given the agreement in principle reached in February between the company and European leaders, with which the technology giant avoided a millionaire fine – it could reach 10% of its sales around EUR five billion – in exchange for adding logos and better position the links of its rivals in the search results. This is

because the main concern of Brussels is the preferential treatment that Google gives its own specialized search engines like Google Shopping or Google Finance, over similar tools competition.

However, the agreement that ended seemed now suffers a setback after new arguments presented by the competition.

Joaquín Almunia, with the remaining commissioners will leave office on November 1, so the resolution of this case, which has lasted for four naos, should pass into the hands of the next Commissioner responsible for Competition in Brussels.