Google has been accused of abusing its market dominance to make it harder for users to search for a rival email platform.
Germany-based Tuta Mail, which claims it has more than ten million global users, has accused Google of removing its platform from the top rankings of searches for “encrypted email”.
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In a complaint to the EU, Tuta Mail said its website’s ranking fell significantly in March 2024, which it said resulted in traffic dropping 90%.
Google has denied the allegation and said Tuta’s website remains “easily accessible” on its search engine.
“At the beginning of March 2024, Google suddenly stopped displaying our website for thousands of keywords,” Tuta wrote in the complaint.
According to the company, traffic to its website was primarily from searches mentioning the direct name of its products.
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By GlobalDataMatthias Pfau, co-founder of Tuta Mail, said: “Google must stop this unfair limitation of showing our website in search results immediately.”
Google updated its algorithm in March and warned there may be fluctuations in its rankings.
The search engine giant denies that its rankings favour particular businesses.
“Search ranking updates absolutely do not aim to preference Google products, or any other particular website. The email provider in question is easily accessible globally on Search,” the company said.
