On 31^st march, 2011, Microsoft Corporation filed a formal complaint with the European anti – trust regulators about Google’s abuse of dominant position in the European internet market and against various anti – competitive practices engaged by it in the relevant market.

This is isn’t exactly the first time Google has been accused of violating anti – trust laws around the globe. In fact, Microsoft along with two other rivals had only last year lodged another complaint with the EU, a matter currently under investigation. Over and above this, in March this year, a U.S. District court found an agreement between Google and the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers for the scanning and digital redistribution of books in its ebookstore to be in violation of U.S. anti – trust laws and asked the parties to renegotiate the agreement. Then again, in 2009, tradecomet.com filed a complaint alleging that Google manipulates its auctions on its “adwords” program to favour certain advertisers like business.com over others, again violating anti – trust laws. And before that, in 2008, the U.S. department of justice launched an investigation into the two-week test agreement between Yahoo Inc. and Google to deliver relevant Web advertising from Google Inc. alongside its own search results. And this list is by no means exhaustive.

The question is, why Google?? According to Susan Wojcicki, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Vice President of Engineering at Google, writing on the company blog:

“Given our success and the disruptive nature of our business, it’s entirely understandable that we’ve caused unease among other companies and caught the attention of regulators.”

Till a large extent she is right. But a few of these complaints and suits have raised some very genuine and relevant questions against certain trade practices followed by Google Inc.

In fact, even in India, a complaint was registered against Google before the CCI on, again, its “adwords” program. In Eximcorp India Pvt. Ltd. v. Google India Pvt. Ltd. (Case no. 68/2010), the complainant/informant, a subscriber to the above mentioned service, alleged that the business practices of Google for such service were discriminatory in nature, and an abuse of dominant position. It also alleged that the bidding process introduced by Google to place advertisements on “adwords” was non-transparent. While the facts of initiation of  the complaint were not directly pertaining to an issue concerning competition law, what is surprising is that the commission in a three page decision concluded that there was no prima – facie evidence to make out a case for further investigation by the Director General into the matter. The issues raised were ones directly pertaining to competition law, and one would have expected the commission to take closer look at the matter taking into consideration Google’s reputation around the world against anti – trust law. Makes one wonder whether the CCI is even aware of the various suits and complaints filed against the most dominant search engine company in the world!!