According to several news reports the Italian Competition Authority searched Google’s Milan offices this morning as part of an investigation into the company’s abuse of its ‘dominant position on the internet’, says paidContent:UK.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint from the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers criticising the search giant’s lack of transparency in handling Google News – in particular the ranking process.

Full post at this link…

Google responds on its European Public Policy Blog stating that publishers can request to be removed from Google News at any time and that Google drives vast amounts of traffic to publishers’ websites.