Google agrees to change search display in Europe
Source: AP-Excite
By JUERGEN BAETZ
BRUSSELS (AP) - Google has agreed to change how it displays search results in Europe - including a better labeling of its promoted content and displaying links to competitors - to appease concerns it might be abusing its dominant market position, the European Union's antitrust body said Thursday.
Google's search engine, which is the world's most influential gateway to online information and commerce, enjoys a near-monopoly in Europe. The EU Commission, which acts as the 27-nation bloc's antitrust authority, has since 2010 been investigating whether the company is unfairly stifling competition. It pointed out several areas of concern that Google is now trying to address through the proposed concessions.
Google has offered to more clearly label search results stemming from its own services such as Google News, Google Maps or its shopping and flight search functions. That would allow users to distinguish between natural search results and others promoted by Google. It also agreed to display some search results from its competitors and links to their services, the EU Commission said.
The Commission has often taken a harder line with U.S. tech companies than its American counterparts, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department. Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, was able to settle a similar antitrust complaint on its search business with the FTC in January without making any major concessions on how it runs its search engine.
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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130425/DA5SIBO82.html
This April 12, 2012, photo shows a Google logo on a window at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google's latest quarterly results reported Thursday, April 18, 2013 provided further proof that the Internet search leader is figuring out how to make more money as Web surfers migrate from personal computers to mobile devices. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
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...and I would appreciate it if Google made similar changes in the US.
My wife has had a couple of instances booking lodging when she thought she was on the hotel/motel's site, only to find out after committing the purchase that it was service agency and as a consequence, for example, that the reservation could not be canceled or was subject to a stiff fee on cancellation. On our way to California before the Holidays we paid for a night at a Marriott that we couldn't get to because the interstate was closed...and we couldn't cancel.
Careful examination of the URLs involved will usually reveal the problem, but if you're in a hurry to book a room with some chain and that chain's logos are spattered on the screen, well ...
Thanks for the post, OS. 
