EU, Google Nearing Antitrust Deal
BRUSSELS—European Union antitrust authorities have reached a “good understanding” with Internet company Google Inc. over their competition concerns, with the first technical talks set to follow in the “coming days or weeks,” the EU's top competition official said Tuesday.
Context & Ripple Effects
Brussels has spent 2012 working through a queue of US platform cases: it cleared Google's Motorola Mobility acquisition in May while flagging an unconfirmed probe of Motorola's patent disputes, and days before this story it opened a separate antitrust probe into Microsoft over browser choice on Windows. Against that backdrop, competition chief's 'good understanding' with Google signals Brussels prefers negotiated commitments over a formal case for its highest-profile internet target.
The pickup was unusually broad — Financial Times (twice), Reuters, CNET, GigaOM, Search Engine Land and others all ran the same-day wire — reflecting how much rides on whether technical talks starting 'in the coming days or weeks' produce binding remedies or collapse into proceedings.
First-order effects
- Google now negotiates remedy terms directly with the Commission instead of facing an immediate formal investigation, with the first technical talks scheduled within days or weeks.
- The EU's top competition official has publicly committed to the talks, raising the political cost if the 'good understanding' fails to convert into agreed commitments.
Second-order effects
- Rivals who filed the original complaints become the de facto benchmark for acceptable remedies — their objections will test whether any negotiated package is credible enough to close the case without proceedings.
- A successful settlement here sets the template Brussels applies to its parallel Microsoft browser probe, pushing both US platforms toward commitment-based fixes rather than fines.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, EU antitrust enforcement against dominant internet platforms consolidates around negotiated commitments brokered before formal proceedings, making the drafting of remedy terms — not the courtroom — the decisive battleground.
- That structure hands lasting leverage to complainant firms, whose willingness to accept or reject a remedy package effectively determines whether a dominant player escapes formal charges.
The trend: EU competition policy is shifting from adversarial investigations toward pre-emptive negotiated settlements with dominant US internet platforms, with Google as the defining test case.