Feb 27, 2018 - Technology

EU regulator speaks out on Google

Sara Fischer

EU competition secretary Margrethe Vestager. Photo: Jasper Juinen / Bloomberg via Getty Images

There have been increased calls on regulators to look into the dominance of Facebook and Google. Most notably, CNN boss Jeff Zucker said yesterday that it's "where the government should be looking." George Soros made the same plea two weeks ago.

Why it matters: While calls to regulate these companies in the U.S. seem newer, in Europe, competition regulators have been fiercely monitoring the regulation of American tech giants for years.

At the heart of those probes is EU competition secretary Margrethe Vestager. Speaking to CNBC this morning, Vestager said the EU is currently eyeing three Google antitrust cases:

Android: The use of the Android to stay dominant.
Play Store: As a phone producer you cannot have the Play Store without taking a number of the other Google products.
AdSense: What rules have Google set out in order to place ads.

"What the three cases have in common is that here you have the dominant company when it comes to search and we find that this dominant position has been misused to do things that a competitor would never be able to do."

— Margrethe Vestager

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EU regulator speaks out on Google

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