If you own a small business you will appreciate the EU’s perspective on this — Google fraudulently biases organic search returns to itself or its advertisers.
I don’t know how this worked in the case in question in Europe, but here in the US it works like this:
“Symbiotic Advertising
While the results of WordStream’s research may indicate that paid advertising is superior to organic SEO for commercial purposes, they as well as Search Engine Watch and Media Two Point Oh indicate that paid advertising and SEO are actually most effective when employed in tandem. A 2012 study by Google indicates that paid ads with associated organic search results actually increase the click-through rates of these ads — as much of 34 percent of paid search clicks happen with a related organic result on the same page.”
From the Houston Chronical (which has a great small business section): http://smallbusiness.chron.com/paid-advertising-affect-seo-59681.html
You have to read between the lines, but when you pay for clicks, those same clicks then build on your organic search results by including the paid key words. And, of course, the more you pay for those key words, the higher the fees, as Google is an ad auction — I mean, extortion — service.
Print ads, tv and radio commercials are paid for and you have zero chance of seeing/hearing about products/services beyond that advertisement.
There is plenty of "Big Brother" machinations with Google but enabling instantaneous access to the world's data, is a great service and it's free.
Perhaps Google should charge Europeans for access by the click?
well... then they had better start suing all the phone book makers that put the large paid ads and before the free ones!