Google to use auction to display rival sites

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Europe

Google, Alphabet's main subsidiary, has offered to display rival shopping comparison sites – but only through an auction. This is to comply with an EU antitrust order to stop favoring its own shopping service, four people familiar with the matter, but declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said on Monday.

The proposal would allow competitors to bid for any spot in the Product Listing Ads, which is part of their Shopping section, the people said.

However, the proposal resembles a failed offer made to the European Commission three years ago. Under this previous proposal, also aimed at settling the long-running EU antitrust investigation, Google reserved the first two places for its own ads.

Google's logo /Reuters Photo

The new proposal, submitted to the European Commission on Aug. 29 following a record fine of 2.87 billion US dollars, would also see Google set a floor price with its own bids minus operating costs.

The offer does not address the issues set out by EU competition regulators, the people said. The Commission had ordered Google to treat rivals and its own service equally.

“This is worse than the commitments,” one of the people said.

Source(s): Reuters