In which we see a difference between EU and US law. US antitrust law exists to protect the consumer. EU antitrust law, evidently, exists to protect other competitors.
Excerpt from Ben Edelman, whose done a damn good job over the years not only watching Google but also companies involved in abusive adware and spyware practices:
'At the same time, Google systematically applied lesser standards to its own services. Examining Google's launch report for a 2008 algorithm change, FTC staff said that Google elected to show its product search OneBox "regardless of the quality" of that result (footnote 119, citing GOOGLR-00330279-80) and despite "pretty terribly embarrassing failures" in returning low-quality results (footnote 170, citing GOOGWRIG-000041022). Indeed, Google's product search service apparently failed Google's standard criteria for being indexed by Google search (p.80 and footnote 461), yet Google nonetheless put the service in top positions (p.30 and footnote 170, citing GOOG-Texas-0199877-906).'
http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html
Were consumers hurt if Google de-ranked content which by even Google's own standards were better than its own? May be not, but it certainly peels away any idea of the integrity of algorithmic search.
Google's business is under attack from all fronts today. As business owners and those employed by internet businesses we are so fortunate as to not have to rely on Google anymore for our audiences. We have have search from two major app stores, and more if you are international. Social can deliver new users at a greater rate than search. There was a day where Google penalized your company, and the next day you fired everyone.
In the next year or so we may start seeing ultra-cheap Chinese smartphones flood the market with Google free Android. Interesting thing commenters here seem to not know, device manufacturers are not allowed to sell any non-Google Android devices if they sell Google Android.
Idealy some lines are drawn so Facebook doesn't engage in similar abusive behavior against its users and customers. I don't have high hopes. If anything, the ability to avoid US penalties and the EU's late reaction time probably emboldens behavior by market leaders everywhere.
So I don't see what you are getting at. If anything, the product search onebox is the opposite of what the EU seems to be complaining about.
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/160637?hl=en
As for your other question about being the #1 result but being ranked below paying advertisers, I'm not sure. Nobody deserves the #1 spot, it's not a natural right granted by your creator. In fact "the #1 search result" varies from query to query and from one user to the next based on their own Google account, if they have one.
Ben Edelman is a smart fellow; I've known him for 15 years or so. But he is a paid Microsoft consultant and advisor. Perhaps he's right on some of these points, but I also suspect that if Microsoft would stop writing him checks very quickly if he suddenly started declaring that Google's actions benefited consumers.
You might as well quote a paid Democratic party consultant doing a "damn good job over the years" describing how evil those dastardly Republicans are.
\* Maybe the FTC would not have dropped the investigation despite finding potential evidence of harm [1] if Google hadn't paid to "honor" the chairman during the investigation [2].
\* And maybe the FTC would not have felt politically pressured to drop the investigation of Google didn't pay more millions than any other tech company to "lobby" the government [3].
I notice that whenever Edelman is mentioned Google apologists such as yourself or Googlers like DannyBee resort to ad hominem attacks rather than address any of the actual arguments he puts out. Do you know if anybody has refuted any of his points? Because I'm genuinely curious.
1. http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-o...
2. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-28/google-hel...
3. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&year...
Microsoft, IBM, Standard Oil, American Tobacco, Alcoa. Several of the biggest companies in US history, all pursued very aggressively by the US Government on anti-trust. You're clearly wrong.