THE European Union's competition chief says Google isn't doing enough to overcome concerns that it is stifling competition, and ordered the Internet giant to come up with new ideas.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has been investigating for three years whether Google Inc is abusing its 90 percent market share in Internet searches in Europe to favor its own services. Google has sought to address the concerns mainly by changing how it displays search results.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said yesterday that after hearing from other organizations and firms, "I concluded that proposals that Google sent to us months ago are not enough to overcome our concerns."

He said he sent a letter to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt "asking Google to present better proposals".

In response, Google spokesman Al Verney said its proposal "clearly addresses" the four areas of concern laid out by EU authorities.

In addition to Google's dominance of Internet searches in Europe, the Commission has also expressed concern about how Google manages the ads appearing next to its search results, how Google displays content from other websites and how its actions affect advertising on rival networks.