US researchers have confirmed the distortion of the results of Google

Google filters the displayed search results. The search engine promotes its own services in return for competing services, thus violating the antitrust laws of many countries and harming Internet users. This is stated in the study of American scientists Michael Luke from the Harvard Business School and Tim Wu from the law school of Columbia University.

The study was conducted with the support of Yelp, one of the companies that contacted the European Commission (as the main antimonopoly agency of the European Union) with a complaint about the Google search engine. The document was presented to the European Commission last Friday.

Based on statistical test data and extensive economic and legal analysis, scientists conclude that Google promotes its own specialized services in the search results to the detriment of competitors, including Yelp and TripAdvisor.

Currently, Google does not display results by relevance, but by giving preference to its own services and partners in the first lines. The authors of the study argue that, if this were not the case, users would be much more likely to follow links in descending order of relevance.

“Thus, by using its dominant position in the search market to promote internal content, Google is reducing social benefit by providing consumers with lower quality results and worse matches,” they write.

In April, the EU officially accused Google of distorting search results. Google’s share of the search market in Europe is about 90%.