German newspaper and magazine publishers have complained to their government, saying that all of their Web sites together earn only about 100 million euros (US$137 million) a year from advertising, while Google generates an estimated 1.2 billion euros from search advertising in Germany.
The federal anti-cartel agency is gathering information, but has not yet decided whether to open a formal investigation.
German publishers have persuaded the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to support a new kind of copyright protecting journalistic content on the Web. Analysts say the measure, which has not yet been introduced, could require Web companies like Google to buy special licenses to cite content published elsewhere.
PRIVACY DEBATE
Attitudes toward Google in Germany have been colored by a heated debate over privacy. Several German towns and cities have moved to block Google from taking pictures of storefronts and homes for its Street View service, which links street-level pictures to maps — though not yet in Germany.
While Street View has been popular in some European countries, Swiss data protection authorities recently sued Google to try to press it to increase privacy protections.
The European Commission in Brussels has pushed Google and other US Internet companies to shorten the period for which they retain consumer data.
However, Google has largely avoided run-ins with the commission’s powerful competition arm, which has struck fear in US boardrooms because of its dogged pursuit of antitrust cases against Microsoft, Intel and other multinational companies.
With a new commission set to take office, rivals of Google, including Microsoft, are stepping up their lobbying efforts, highlighting the strength of Google’s position in Europe.
“Whenever you have a company that has more than a 90 percent market share in a key market, it is inevitable that people will have questions to ask,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, told reporters in Brussels last week. “We say that with some experience.”
According to comScore, a research firm, Google handles 80 percent of European Web searches — compared with 65 percent in the US.
Yahoo with 17 percent, and Bing, from Microsoft, with 11 percent, offer modest competition in the US, but they are nearly nonexistent in Europe, with less then 2 percent each, comScore said.
Commission officials have said that a dominant market share is insufficient cause for an antitrust case; there must be evidence that a company is abusing this position to stifle competition. Analysts say the dearth of homegrown rivals to Google could also undermine any move to take regulatory action against the company.
“Brussels may not want to pick a fight with Google because there is no one to reward if they win,” said Evan Stewart, an antitrust expert at the law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder.
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