Google offers to label its own properties in searches to settle EU antitrust case

To settle charges that it’s artificially boosting its own properties in search results, Google is offering to let consumers know that it’s the company behind Google Shopping. The Guardian reports that Google has made a settlement offer to European antitrust officials in which the company says it will “label results where its own properties, such as YouTube or Google Shopping, appear in listings when people perform searches.” The Guardian notes that this concession is unlikely to satisfy critics who claim that Google is pushing down rivals’ products to promote its own services, since the offer would do nothing to change the rankings in search results. Google skated in a similar investigation in the United States when the Federal Trade Commission found it didn’t violate American antitrust law late last year.