Europe Likely to Be Harder on Google Over Search

By some accounts, the United States let Google off the hook when it found that the technology giant had not abused its dominance in the Internet search market. Few expect the European antitrust watchdog to be as lenient.

The agreement with the American authorities, analysts and competition lawyers say, is unlikely to alter the demands of European regulators, led by the competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia. “We have taken note of the F.T.C. decision, but we don’t see that it has any direct implications for our investigation, for our discussions with Google, which are ongoing,” said Michael Jennings, a spokesman for the European Commission in Brussels. Faced with nearly $4 billion in possible penalties and restrictions on its business in Europe, Google submitted proposals in July to remedy the concerns of the European Commission, which covered four areas. In its deal with the FTC, Google made concessions in two of those areas but was not required to do so in the rest.