U.S. tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) has won an antitrust battle against a local search engine provider in France.
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Lack of Evidence
The French antitrust watchdog Autorite de la Concurrence today dismissed a complaint filed against Microsoft by search engine Qwant, which accused it of abusing its dominant position.
Qwant had alleged Microsoft imposed exclusivity restrictions on it in search results and search advertising, hampering its ability to develop its own search engine and its own artificial intelligence. The French company also alleged Microsoft favored itself in allocating search advertising.
The watchdog, however, ruled that Qwant had failed to bring enough evidence to back up its claims and consequently refused to support its request to enforce an interim injunction against Microsoft.
“Qwant’s allegations of a dominant position and economic dependence are unsubstantiated,” it said.
Qwant, which has historically relied on Microsoft’s Bing platform to deliver search and news results, last month said that it expected its complaint to be dismissed and that it would challenge it in court or take it to other authorities.
MSFT Wants to Foster Innovation
The U.S. tech titan welcomed the ruling. “We agree with the decision and remain committed to providing high-quality search services and fostering innovation for consumers and partners in France and across Europe,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Europe has become a thorn in the side of U.S. tech this year particularly over the question of market dominance in a range of fields from search to AI. This has even stoked the ire of President Trump.
Earlier this year Microsoft said that its antitrust dispute with the European Union was over but only after giving commitments to address competition rules concerns. These related to Microsoft’s bundling together of its group collaboration software Teams with its other productivity suites, Office 365 and Microsoft 365, for business customers in Europe.
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