MPs call for UK investigation into Google

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 6 Apr 2011 at 11:20

MPs have said there is "growing evidence" that Google is abusing its market position to hurt other search firms.

Google is already being investigated by the EU over anti-competition complaints lodged by UK search firm Foundem, as well as Microsoft.

However, MPs have suggested the EU investigation isn't enough, and Tory MP Dominic Raab said in a debate that the Government shouldn't wait for the "cumbersome, clumping, clumsy conclusions of the European Commission to preserve our own free market at home."

Businesses can hold, secure or maintain a dominant position, but not abuse it, and there is growing evidence that that is exactly what Google is doing

"Businesses can hold, secure or maintain a dominant position, but not abuse it, and there is growing evidence that that is exactly what Google is doing," Raab said.

He said he was "fairly open-minded" as to whether the solution required a voluntary code or legislation, but stressed existing regulators weren't doing enough.

Raab accused Ofcom of "complacency" and said the OFT was refusing to act until it heard complaints from customers. "That is all very well, but customers may be oblivious to what Google is surreptitiously doing," he noted.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said he was "extremley sympathetic" to the complaints against Google, noting the market dominance problem could extend to other web firms, but said the EU investigation was "an adequate remedy at the moment".

He suggested Raab might find the OFT as "clunky and time-consuming" as the EU, and that any probe would take years.

The debate inexplicably came under the heading of net neutrality - an entirely different topic that Vaizey said Parliament needed to "stay focused on".

Google has yet to reply for request for comment.