Regulators weigh demands for Google

How far will Google go to head off the threat of long and damaging antitrust battles on both sides of the Atlantic – and how hard will regulators push to cramp its expansive style? The answers to those questions should become clearer in the next few weeks, as the European Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission press the company for voluntary changes in its business model to end their antitrust investigations.

Rivals want radical action, perhaps even extending to a break-up of Google into separate companies that handle search and other services. The likely outcome, though, is more minimalist. The most important issues involve search “fairness”. Does Google give undue prominence to its own services, such as maps and comparison shopping, robbing other sites of all-important search traffic? And does it discriminate against some sites by relegating them in its rankings? This could play out very differently in Europe and the US.