"While Google may be the most used search engine, people can now find and access information in numerous different ways – and allegations of harm, for consumers and competitors, have proved to be wide of the mark," Amit Singhal said on Google's official blog.
Earlier in the day, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager submitted a formal Statement of Objections to Google accusing it of unfairly advancing its Google Shopping service in breach of EU antitrust legislation. The European Commission launched a separate probe into Google's Android operating system widely used across mobile platforms.
Vestager said in a televised address after the statement's release that Google has 10 weeks to formally respond to this allegation, which according to media reports may result in a $6.4 billion fine.
In graphs showing Google Shopping trailing by tens of thousands unique visits its biggest competitors eBay and Amazon, as well as other online consumer services in Germany, France and the United Kingdom throughout 2014, Singhal claimed the company's search results did not harm competition.
"So while in many ways it's flattering to be described as a gatekeeper, the facts don't actually bear that out," the company's senior official said.
The European Commission's investigation dates back to November 2010 and although the sides reached a compromise February 2014, it reopened the antitrust case seven months later following new allegations against the company's anticompetitive practices.
