PARIS (Reuters) -France’s antitrust agency is investigating Microsoft over concerns that it is degrading the quality of results when smaller rivals pay to use Bing technology in their own search-engine products.
“We are fully cooperating with the Autorite’s investigation,” a Microsoft spokesperson said, referring to the regulator’s French name.
Bloomberg reported the investigation earlier on Monday. Microsoft, though not a major player in the general market, is a leader in the search-engine syndication sector.
The competition authority declined to comment.
The investigation could yield formal charges and a fine against the U.S. tech giant.
(Reporting by Makini Brice in Paris and Foo Yun Chee in BrusselsEditing by Tomasz Janowski)
