Breaking News: Google’s proposed commitments are out
Google’s proposed commitments have just been made public. You can read them here: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/39740/39740_8608_5.pdf
And here’s DG Comp’s interesting Q&A memo on the market test.
I’ve only skimmed through them, but they are not as densely worded as I thought + they include quite useful screenshots. By the way, the Commission should get some market testing-advertising revenues too: the screenshots contain some good avertising of Digital SRL cameras (see capture above; btw, pay special attention to (i) the “sponsored” label at the top and the box that appears when you hover on it; and (ii) the line at the very bottom: “Search on Site 1, Site 2 or Site 3”; we’ll come back to these), of restaurants in Mountain View, and of President Obama.
The complainants have asked for an extended review period -3 months instead of 1-. Due to various reasons these are particularly busy days on our side, but we’ll try to to provide you with a summary and our first comments asap.
Chillin'Competition 
The Commission names Google “European users’ web search service of choice”. I have a strong feeling that we’ll encounter that statement
as Google’s new advertising sloganin a possible challenge of the Commission’s assertion that Google is holding a dominant position (with “choice” printed in ultra-bold letters).AX
26 April 2013 at 10:43 am