AFP© Getty/AFP/File Justin SullivanGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote during the 2015 Google I/O conference on May 28, 2015 in San Francisco, California
San
Francisco (AFP) - Google chief executive Sundar Pichai will meet with
the European Union's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager in
Brussels in the coming week, a source familiar with the matter said.
European competition officials have been investigating the US tech
giant for years over alleged monopolistic practices involving its search
engines, but any resolution has been elusive.
Three successive proposals by Google for an amicable settlement have been rejected.
Vestager last year sent a "statement of objections." It said Google
had diverted traffic from rival price-comparison services like Kelkoo,
which operates in several European countries, to favor its own
comparison shopping service.
Google responded in late August that Brussels's findings were wrong and based on a flawed evaluation of the market.
If no agreement is reached and the group is found to have broken the
EU's antitrust rules, it could face fines amounting to billions of
dollars.
In addition to the initial inquiry into Google's search engines which
began in late 2010, the European competition service opened a second
one in April to examine the group's Android mobile operating system.
This software, used by a wide range of brands, is installed in more than
80 percent of the world's smartphones.
Pichai became Google's chief executive officer during a restructuring
last year that installed a new holding company, Alphabet, as Google's
parent.
Google now focuses on its core businesses -- online activity,
Android, YouTube -- while its peripheral interests such as driverless
cars are overseen directly by Alphabet.
Pichai is scheduled to be in Brussels on Thursday, where he will meet
with Vestager as well as Gunther Oettinger, the EU commissioner for
digital economy and society, and European Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker. Topics to be discussed include the digital single
market as well as digital skills and jobs.
Earlier, Pichai will be in Barcelona on Monday and Tuesday for the
Mobile World Congress, and in Paris on Wednesday to meet with
publishers.
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