Yesterday, news broke via Bloomberg that Google and the European Union have settled over the anti-trust probe regarding rival links in the search results.
Google will dodge EU fines and any finding that it discriminated against competing sites, a year after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped a similar investigation by saying Google was motivated more by innovation than by trying to stifle competition.The five-year pledge to the European Commission lets Google add new services or alter its search page as long as it grants three links to rival services next to its own specialized search results such as Google Shopping, the Brussels-based EU said. Competitors will pay at least 3 euro cents (4 U.S. cents) to bid for a spot in a shaded box on some of Google’s search pages.
How far will Google have to go to make the EU happy about showing competition in the search results? Danny Sullivan posted examples of images the EU posted on what they expect to see. Will Google go to this extreme? I can't imagine but we will see:
Here are examples:
This is some bold stuff expected from Google.
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