Google just denied accusations from the European Commission that it's anti-competitive
The EU says that the ads Google uses on its search results divert traffic away from shopping services, but Google says that the EU has no evidence for that claim. Google, with its own data, found that "product search is robustly competitive."
"We don't think this format is anti-competitive. On the contrary, showing ads based on structured data provided by merchants demonstrably improves ad quality and makes it easier for consumers to find what they're looking for," Kent Walker, Google's SVP & General Counsel wrote in a blog post. "We show these ad groups where we've always shown ads -- to the right and at the top of organic results - and we use specialized algorithms to maximize their relevance for users. Data from users and advertisers confirms they like these formats. That's not "favoring" - that's giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful."