As we reported earlier, the European Union is preparing to file antitrust charges against Google as of tomorrow. Well according to an internal document leaked to re/code, we now can roughly expect what the search engine conglomerate’s defense can be. The memo leaked to the media outlet quotes as follows.
“The competition is just one click away… and it’s growing. People can use Bing, Yahoo, Quora, DuckDuckGo, and a new wave of search assistants like Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, as well as more specialized services like Amazon, Idealo, Le Guide, Expedia, or eBay. In addition, users increasingly turn to social networks like Facebook and Twitter to find news and suggestions… where to eat or which movies to watch.”
This is followed up by several charts and graphs, one reference, in particular, was ComScore, sighting ongoing and tough competition from the likes of Amazon and Ebay.. Also from the memo…
“Competition online is thriving… despite what many of the complainants in this case allege. Indeed, if you look at shopping, it’s clear that there’s a ton of competition (including from Amazon and eBay) that has not been harmed by Google’s own shopping service.”
The reference information is focused on online shopping, with a few exceptions. Google also expects that the European Union will want to investigate the Android operating system as well, but according to the documents, they’re pretty confident that they have a good chance to prevail. If you would like to read the full document at the source, check out the link below. We’ll be here when further news develops.
Source: Re/code
