The EU approach is at odds with that of the US Federal Trade Commission, which last week cleared the Californian technology giant of any wrong-doing, albeit with the technology boffins promising a slight tweak to their search function.

Diverting traffic

According to a report in the Financial Times, EU competition chief Joaquín Almunia said Google may face charges for ‘diverting traffic’ from search results to its own services.
‘We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google is] diverting traffic,’ Mr Almunia said. ‘They are monetising this kind of business, the strong position they have in the general search market and this is not only a dominant position, I think – I fear – there is an abuse of this dominant position.’
In contrast, the US investigation concluded by hailing Google as ‘one of America’s great companies’, ruling that its actions had been taken to improve user experience rather than to eliminate rivals, reports the Daily Telegraph newspaper in London.
A Google spokesman said: ‘We continue to co-operate with the European Union.’

Patent war

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that Google has ended its patent war with Microsoft over video compression techniques used in the Xbox 360 gaming system.
Google had also suggested that Microsoft has copied its Wi-Fi innovations.
However, Google yesterday asked the US’s International Trade Commission – an independent quasi-judicial federal agency -- to drop the claims, leading Microsoft to urge the company to withdraw further claims including a licensing dispute.
David Howard, corporate vice president at Microsoft commented: ‘We're pleased that Google has finally withdrawn these claims for exclusion orders against Microsoft, and hope that it will now withdraw similar claims pending in other jurisdictions as required by the FTC consent order.’