Antitrust authorities in Italy are examining Google (Italy) after publishers of news websites complained that the search titan was not giving them a fair share of revenue from online advertising.

The accusers claim that Google does not disclose criteria for ranking content on its news site. Consequently, agencies such as newspapers are unable to maximize the amount of money gained from advertising. Search engines such as Google and Bing actually do give some information regarding rankings, but do not give their entire method in order to avoid complications.

Carlo Malinconico, president of the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers, said “Publishers provide much of the content on the Internet, but they get nearly nothing for it….This is not fair, in our opinion. Our feeling is we lose more than we gain.” Newspapers also claim that Google Italy discriminates against sites that do not want to be associated with Google News by dropping them from the search engine completely.

According to comScore, Google controlled 68 percent of all search queries in July, a mere 76.7 billion entries. It still owns nearly 90 percent of searches in Italy. As long as Google continues to dominate the search world, similar antitrust claims will remain common. While the allegations are serious, experts don’t see the probe going far.

Google has already been a victim of private suits by small companies; as long as its competitive nature stays intact, Google will remain a consistent target of such allegations. Blair Levin, a former FCC official, stated that there is nothing wrong with becoming the powerful force in a market. “The question is: Once you’ve attained [dominance], what are the rules of the road?” Levin said.В В 

Authorities will continue to monitor Google in order to ensure that it does not use its search engine notoriety as an advantage in new ventures. It is moving into the social networking realm with Google Profiles, something that could give competition to websites such as Facebook and Twitter. User profiles would appear as search results, which could give Google Profiles an advantage.

Google accounts for 64% of the market in America, and while it may be a big force in online business, there are currently no grounds for an antitrust case. “You have to be big, and you have to be bad,” said Andrew Gavil, a legal professor at Howard University. Although no antitrust lawsuit is imminent, government authorities will continue to monitor Google.