The EU is investigating to see whether Google violated its antitrust laws by putting its own shopping listings unnaturally high in search results.  If found guilty, Google could be required to pay a fine the equivalent of more than six billion dollars (or lower, if the Euro keeps dropping!).

I had a really great antitrust professor in law school  (who went on to become a high-profile federal judge), and I can tell you, without hesitation, that this lawsuit is without merit.  It is claimed that Google is using monopoly power to artificially promote its shopping sites in search results, but there are two problems with this claim.

In order to use monopoly power, a company needs at least two things: a large market share, and an inability for consumers to have a reasonable choice in competitors.  Without a doubt, Google has a large market share, powering a majority of searches done in the United States and many countries around the world.  But it is very easy for people to use a competing service like Bing.

If people are unhappy with Google promoting its own shopping services in its search results, it is very easy and free for them to go and use Bing.  The fact that they don't go and use Bing in large numbers indicates that consumers aren't very troubled by this.  Neither am I.

Critics might say that Google "artificially" places its own shopping features higher in search results.  Well, if that were true, what would be the "natural" placement of Google's shopping features?  Would they be listed fifth?  Fiftieth?  Five hundredth?  Come to think of it, what is a "natural" placement in a search result?

The fact is, there is nothing natural, or objective, about the order of search results.  In fact, it is extremely subjective.  Google doesn't have just one formula to determine search result rankings; it has many formulas, and many carve-outs and exceptions.  The exception for its own services is simply one more added to the list.  There is no way to tell what the "natural" ranking of Google's shopping features would be, because the system of ranking itself is not natural, but subjective.  That's why this whole EU investigation is ridiculous.

There are examples of real monopolies still to be found in the real world, however.  Take public schools.  In many towns parents don't even have a choice for a private alternative, or if they do, it is prohibitively expensive because they are forced to give their tax money to the public option, regardless of where they send their children.

Or take the Post Office.  It is still illegal to compete against first class mail, and as a result, we have poor service and long lines.

Or consider cable television.  Many towns limit the number of cable companies permitted to operate in their jurisdiction.  Cable companies who have enormous market power force customers to pay for channels the cable companies own but customers don't want, in order to get the channels that customers do want.  This is a common monopolistic practice called "tying."

These are uses of monopoly power.  Google doesn't have this kind of power.

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.