The world’s dominant search engine Google has achieved the ultimate commercial accolade of its own brand name becoming the defining word describing its action. When we say that we will ‘google’ something, we are paying homage to the company’s extraordinary power in the market. But such commercial power should not be abused, which Google has done, according to the European regulators where Google has 92 per cent of the search engine business.
The European Union has charged Google with abusing its dominance in both search engines and in smartphone operating systems with its Android technology to gain an unfair advantage over competitors in both markets — in particular by diverting traffic from its competitors to favour its own comparison shopping site.
The charges by the more active Europeans may lead the more relaxed American regulators to take action, which should be followed by other regulators around the world even, if such global commercial powers are hard to control at a national level. Just as all Google users should be able to safeguard their personal data from Google, they should also be protected from Google’s desire to make more profit without any penalty.
