French Internet company 1plusV has filed a fresh antitrust complaint against Google for allegedly abusing its dominant market position.
In its complaint with the European Commission, French company which creates specialised search engines for topics such as law and music, accused Google of artificially favouring its own websites and pushing down other competing search sites in search results.
French firm also alleged that Google prioritised its own specialised searches for books over those of competitors, without visually differentiating them from the rest of the searches.
The latest complaint follows similar complaints from price comparison site Foundem and legal search engine ejustice.fr, part of 1plusV, last year.
These triggered a European Commission probe into Google’s business practices, which is ongoing.
If found guilty of abusing its dominant position regulators could impose a hefty fine on Google.
Under EU law, companies with a dominant market position need to treat their competitors fairly and restrict the amount of products and services that can be bundled to their primary offer.
