EU Launches Google Investigation (GOOG)

The European Union launched a formal investigation on Google GOOG on Tuesday after several search service engines complained that the company had abused its dominant market position. "The (European) Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services," a EU executive said in a statement. Shares of Google are down 0.9%, or $5.11, to $577 in pre-market trade. Google said in February that British website Foundem and French legal search engine ejustice.fr had alleged that the Google search algorithm lowered their websites in search results because they were rivals. Further, the company said that Microsoft's MSFT Ciao from Bing had complained about Google's standard terms and conditions. According to a Reuters report, "The Commission said it would also look into allegations that Google sets exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their websites, as well as on computer and software vendors, with the aim of shutting out competing search tools. It would also investigate suspected restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms."