Google, this is why you’re under investigation

It’s easy to dismiss the claims against Google as carping by rivals. But for anyone who thinks the European Union investigation isn't warranted, here are a couple of data points worth thinking about.

First, figures from Hitwise suggest Google now accounts for 92 percent of all search traffic in the U.K. That’s an all-time high for the company, signifying complete domination of the market. The figure is actually higher in some other European countries, and significantly more than its North American market share. Google dominates the European market to a degree that is far greater than its successes at home.

Elsewhere, it emerged over the weekend that the Belgian newspapers locked in a dispute with Google were back in conflict again. A consortium known as Copiepresse famously filed a lawsuit against the company in 2006, claiming Google News should not excerpt their articles without permission or payment. The news group won the case, eventually, but it was pretty acrimonious. Now, however, it appears Google is playing hard ball again, saying in order to comply with the court’s wishes it has to remove Copiepresse entirely from its index.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that it’s entirely possible to become totally dominant in a market through simply being better than anyone else. But it’s also worth saying that being investigated by a regulator doesn't mean the same as being found guilty by them. When it comes to government regulators getting involved in technology businesses, though, the question is not whether it’s possible to control a market — it is whether it’s healthy. And that is less obvious, and therefore why an investigation on both sides of the Atlantic may be necessary.