Google given more time to prove to Brussels it's NOT 'abusive' in search The two-year long competition probe of Google's search business in Europe is poised to continue at least into the second half of this year, commissioner Joaquin Almunia has confirmed. "We can reach an agreement after the summer break. We can envisage this as a possible deadline," he said on Friday, according to Reuters. The …
Unlike MS, Google has been presenting technically enforceable solutions (not just words) for EU regulators to share with their technical experts. We could do it this way or we could do it that way has been discussed. If it takes until September so be it. In the meantime MS should be more concerned with who's bonus will be docked $7B for violating a legal agreement with the EU.
Seems reasonable:
EU: dear google we have concerns about your business model. Can you help?
G: dear eu let us know the area of your concerns and we will work with you to amend our business model - if the newer business model has worldwide merit we might roll it out worldwide.
ps - good to do business with you
Looks to me like both sides are bargaining hard for the best they can get. I think Google would do well to remember that in the end Almunia is basically calling the shots. They make him happy, or they are in a world of pain.
I'm guessing that Google really does not want this to get serious, so they'd better make him happy.
WTF does 'market test' mean in this context? Who decides what success means?
Given the bending over backwards demonstrated so far by insisting the complainants must be happy with any proposed solution, a fair guess would be it's only judged a success if Bing and the vertical search bottom feeders involved all see a substantial increase in traffic. But would that signify a consumer benefit or just distortion of the market in the other direction?
I sure as hell know which way Microsoft and Fairsearch will portray it and if change at Google doesn't push business their way that they will not accept that. I also know just how bad search will get if Google get hobbled down to their competitors woeful performance. It's near unusable already thanks to the SEO industry.
But of course if Google put things forward and Almunia thinks they are reasonable and other testers find it reasonable but Microsoft and its patsies keep whining on and on then Almunia may take the view that MS and Co are being totally unreasonable and he can dismiss their complaint.
Due to the privacy implications, secure/private APIs to/from Google must not let Google back door Safari or Facebook and vice versa to scavenge contact lists or any other private data. Letting privacy design alternatives compete for six months is a good idea.
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