Google has quite a battle on its hands with the European Union. The company’s Search and Android businesses, its privacy policy and tax practices are all under some sort of investigation. The company’s local chief admitted in an interview that Google may have been wrong about how it’s handled its situation in Europe, but it still dismissed the main accusations coming from the EU, which say Google’s abused its dominant position when it comes to search and smartphones.
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“We don’t always get it right,” Google’s President of EMEA Business and Operations Matt Brittin told Politico. “As far as Europe is concerned: we get it. We understand that people here are not the same in their attitudes to everything as people in America.”
“We just didn’t have the people on the ground to be able to have some of those conversations as we grew.”
Brittin, however, didn’t exactly explain what Google didn’t get right, and argued that it didn’t violate antitrust regulations in the region when it comes to Search. Android is also targeted in similar investigations.
“There is no evidence that consumers have been harmed here, and actually no evidence that complainants have been harmed,” Brittin said, pointing out that many of the complaints originate from U.S. companies.
Brittin also took the time to dismiss accusations brought by Disconnect, a privacy-enhancing Android app that was banned by Google last August. The app’s creators, some of them former Googlers, brought a complaint against Google in Europe.
“We have a lots of other privacy apps available on the Google Play store and if people do not comply with the rules we need to make changes,” the top exec said. “There are going to be people who will complain about the policies on our app store.”
