The European association of IT SMEs (PIN-SME) welcomes the decision by the European Commission to proceed with a formal Statement of Objection against the search engine giant Google. As outlined by the Commission in its preliminary view, the company is abusing a dominant position, in breach of EU antitrust rules, by systematically favouring its own comparison-shopping product in its general search results pages.

Bo Sejer Frandsen, PIN-SME President, welcomed this decision: “The search engine is the Internet access point for most users. Google reached such a dominant position that it holds a de facto monopoly, with which it can distort competition in the market. Independent price-comparison portals, most of which are SMEs, faced significant disadvantages, because they are disfavoured in Google search results ranking. In change, this practice has maximized the profits of Googles’ own services with harm to the competitors.”

In the opinion of PIN-SME, this practice creates disadvantaged not only IT SMEs, but also the consumers. As European IT SMEs, we are committed to an open and competitive market, therefore we stand behind the initiative of the European Commission.” said Mr Frandsen.