In May 2012 Joaquín Almunia, the European Union’s competition commissioner, laid outfour areas of concern about Google, which accounts for more than 90% of searches in Europe. The first was that Google favoured its own specialised search services (for restaurants or flights, say) ahead of others. The second was that it may have been copying (or “scraping”) content, such as reviews, from competitors. The third was exclusive agreements between Google and other website-owners, under which Google served up the advertisements that appeared after searches on those sites. The fourth was that advertisers could not easily transfer campaigns from Google to rivals.
