Eric Schmidt: 'European law is biased against large companies'

Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt gave an address at Stanford in which he talked about the attitude of European law towards "large companies," many of which come from the US.

The remarks, which were transcribed by Chris Yeh, come in response to a student question about antitrust, a process that Google has been subject to multiple times in Europe.

"Obviously, it's a concern," Schmidt said. "But now that the Europeans are focused on all the American companies, it's a little easier. European law is biased against large companies. There's a commissioner in Europe who launched a study ?-? he listed 32 companies, 31 of which were American."

Various aspects of Google's business have been subject to scrutiny by EU regulators, including the shopping channel on Google Search which was found to favour some links over others without being transparent about who was paying for exposure. Google, for its part, emphasizes how much traffic the company drives to e-commerce websites.

Schmidt also talked about various other aspects of Google's businesses and past, including the fateful 2004 interview with Playboy in which Sergey Brin and Larry Page contravened the rules surrounding media appearances near an IPO.