A COALITION of Google's competitors urged the European Union's antitrust watchdog yesterday to reject the Internet giant's proposed concessions on displaying search results.

"It would be better to do nothing than to accept Google's proposals," said Thomas Vinje of FairSearch, a group of 17 companies including Microsoft and TripAdvisor. "The proposals would make things worse rather than better," he insisted.

The European Commission, the bloc's antitrust authority, has been investigating since 2010 whether Google is abusing its dominant market position and stifling competition. It pointed out several areas of concern, which Google is trying to address mainly by changing the way it displays search results.

Google's search engine enjoys a market share of about 90 percent in Europe, which gives it a huge edge over competitors to promote its own services such as Google News, Google Maps or its shopping and flight search functions.

Complainants in the case had two months ending this week to provide the EU with feedback to the proposed remedies.