European Union antitrust regulators launched an investigation into Google’s search practices in November 2010 after rivals accused the company of promoting its own services ahead of theirs. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia on Monday said regulators and Google were not looking at a lengthy proceeding, and if the Internet giant could meet certain demands, the antitrust investigation could be brought to a close, Reuters reported. “Google has repeatedly expressed to me its willingness to di...

European regulators are investigating Motorola Mobility for allegedly overcharging Microsoft and Apple for use of its industry standard patents in their products, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Both companies filed complaints with the European Commission, which is now conducting the investigation that will look to determine whether Motorola failed to honor its “irrevocable commitments” made to standard-setting organizations. In February, Microsoft had asked antitrust regulators to intervene in its p...

Regulators with the European Union have asked Google to stop rolling out new privacy changes that the company originally introduced earlier this month. “Given the wide range of services you offer, and the popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most or all of the EU member states,” the European wrote in a letter to Google’s CEO Larry Page. “We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citize...

The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has opened a formal investigation into Samsung’s competitive practices. The Commission will assess whether the Korean manufacturer “used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules.” Samsung has used a collection of its patents to launch a series of lawsuits against rival companies, such as Apple. The technology giant maintains, however, that thes...

Officials in the European Union will decide by the end of March whether or not to formally investigate Google. An informal investigation into Google’s practices has been ongoing since November 2010. “I will receive comments from the case team towards the end of the first quarter,” European Union competition commissioner Joaguin Alumnia told Reuters. “I do not expect anything sooner. Let us see.” 10 different firms have filed anti-competition complaints against Google with the E...

European Union regulators have temporarily stopped investigating Google’s planned $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility until more information is made available. The antitrust investigation will resume after “certain documents that are essential to its evaluation of the transaction” are provided to the European Union, Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for the government agency explained. The suspension went into effect on December 6th and it is unclear how long it will last. Bloomberg said...

The European Commission announced Tuesday that it has opened formal proceedings to investigate whether or not major eBook publishers, possibly “with the help of Apple,” are “engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of eBooks.” The publishing companies named in the investigation include Hachette Livre, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck. “The Commission will in particular investigate whether these publishing groups ...

The European Commission now has a total of nine formal antitrust complaints targeting Google, Reuters reported on Tuesday. “The new complaints come from small companies,” one source told the news outlet, and another said two of the complaints were new while three came from national regulators. Until Tuesday, the EC had only confirmed that there were four total complaints. Microsoft has also filed a formal complaint with the European Commission and its general counsel, Brad Smith, said that the s...

1PlusV, a French search company, has filed a lawsuit against Google asking for 295 million euros ($421 million). “Between 2007 and 2010, no less than 30 vertical search engines created by 1plusV were black-listed, some of which showed significant business potential,” the company said in its lawsuit. According to Reuters, 1PlusV plans to file the official complaint on Tuesday or Wednesday with the Paris commercial court. Google has been taking a lot of legal heat recently. In the United States, Google rece...

Google’s plan to acquire ITA Software may result in an antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), two sources speaking to Bloomberg said Tuesday. The FTC is currently waiting for the Justice Department to render a decision on whether or not the acquisition will stifle competition among firms competing for clicks in the travel search engine market. Both the FTC and the Justice Department are capable of executing an antitrust investigation, and some pundits believe the scale of this probe...

Microsoft has filed a complaint with the European Commission in regards to Google’s search operations in the European Union. “Our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of the European consumers,” said Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith. “Google has engaged in a broadening pattern of walling off access to content and data that competitors need to provide...

Qualcomm is now at the center of a European Commission antitrust investigation, it was revealed on Thursday. Stemming from a complaint from rival chipmaker Icera, the Wall Street Journal is claiming that “the main issue appears to be over the way Qualcomm links the patents from other companies to its own patent offering to bolster its chip sales.” For its part, Qualcomm says that the new allegations are more or less the same as previous antitrust case it fended off in 2005 in which six major compe...

In a scathing response to European Commissioner Viviane Reding’s report on the mobile industry in Europe, Vodafone claims 40M million users, most of them “poor” pay as you go customers, may have to cancel their mobile service if her proposed changes to call termination charges go into effect. Termination charges are the fees mobile operators charge each other (and land line companies) for connecting to their networks. Currently mobile operators in Europe charge each other an average of 8 cen...