Google's European issues

A couple of bits of news today concern European legal action against US Internet giant Google. However, they couldn't be further apart regarding their validity.

First we got the news that Google is joining an exclusive club, which includes the likes of Microsoft and Google, and is coming under the EC spotlight to see if any of its business practices are anti-competitive. Intriguingly, Microsoft seems to be the primary driver behind the complaint to the EC and the issue is whether Google is unfairly moving its competitors down the list of search results.

It's right and proper that Google comes under this scrutiny. I've read some comments that Google is not a monopoly because there is choice, but regardless of choice, once a company comes to own the vast majority of a market - however fairly it got there - a special set of rules apply and it has to do more than other companies to show it is not harming competition.

A contrastingly ridiculous ruling came from an Italian judge who held individual Google employees liable for a nasty video posted on Google in 2006. The precedent this sets is for all content hosting platforms - such as Blogger, on which this is written - to be liable for all content uploaded onto them. It's obviously not viable for host platforms to individually vet all content before it's uploaded, and thus absurd to hold them responsible for it.