Complaint by VG Media not sufficient to institute formal abuse of dominance proceedings against Google

In response to enquiries, the Bundeskartellamt confirms that the complaint submitted by the collecting society VG Media does not provide sufficient indications of abusive conduct to initiate formal abuse of dominance proceedings against Google.

Irrespective of VG Media's complaint, the Bundeskartellamt is closely monitoring Google's conduct and detectable reactions to assertions of the ancillary copyrights by individual publishers or VG Media itself from an antitrust perspective. Where appropriate, it will consider instituting proceedings ex officio.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: "Abuse of dominance proceedings can only be initiated if there is a sufficiently strong initial suspicion. VG Media's complaint did not provide sufficient grounds for such an initial suspicion."

VG Media's complaint concerned Google's conduct with regard to the ancillary copyright for press publishers which was introduced on 1 August 2013. Accordingly, publishers are allowed to prohibit search engines and similar services to use their articles or other work products, with the exception of individual words or tiny text fragments. The exact scope of the ancillary copyright is currently under debate. VG Media's complaint is largely limited to pointing out the possibility of cartel law violations by Google if publishers claim their copyrights vis-á-vis the Google News service. The complaint is not based on a specific conduct of Google. The same applies to the allegation that Google unfairly biases its search results to harm press publishers and thus force them to waive their ancillary copyrights.