GOOG Alphabet Inc

By Natalia Drozdiak 

BRUSSELS--Getty Images Inc., the world's largest photo agency, said Wednesday it has lodged an official complaint with the European Union's antitrust watchdog over Alphabet Inc.'s Google, accusing the U.S. technology giant of abusing its dominance in search to display copied images without compensation.

Google "scrapes" or copies content from publishers to display the images in search results and unfairly favors its image-search service over rivals, Getty Images said in a statement announcing the formal complaint.

The U.S. tech company reinforces its dominance in search and maintains a monopoly over site traffic, data and advertising by proposing to remove the providers' images entirely from search results if they don't consent to the content being copied, Getty Images said. Removing the images from search would make them invisible on the Internet, the photo agency said.

Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

The official complaint follows on previous submissions to the commission last year that have allowed the firm to participate in hearings and submit evidence to the commission regarding the ongoing investigations into Google.

Getty Images said that following changes made to Google's image search function in 2013, the U.S. search giant now displays high-resolution, large format images in its search results, removing the incentive for consumers to click through to the original source website.

"This format has diverted users away from source sites and siphoned traffic from Getty Images, other media organizations and image creators, " Getty Images said in a statement.

The slowing traffic has resulted in fewer Getty Images' being licensed and purchased, hitting its revenue growth, a person familiar with the situation has said.

Google previously only displayed low-resolution thumbnails that led users to the images' main websites, Getty said.

Getty Images, majority owned by private-equity firm Carlyle Group and part-owned by members of the Getty oil family, has a digital trove of more than 100 million images, which it licenses and sells to publishers, advertisers and websites.

News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal, last week filed a similar complain t, accusing Google of reinforcing its dominance in general search by "scraping" or copying content from publishers to display the results of news articles, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The European Commission is already investigating allegations that Google copies or "scrapes" rival Web content, but so far hasn't issued any formal charges in the area.

The EU has issued two sets of separate formal charges against Google for allegedly skewing search results to favor its own shopping service and for abusing its dominance with its Android mobile operating system to protect its search engine. The commission is also actively investigating Google's alleged favorable treatment of specialized search services in areas such as local search, travel and maps.

"Europe's anti-trust regulators have recognized the harm to competition caused by Google's practices, and we ask for the same level of scrutiny to be paid to this issue in other geographies," Getty Images General Counsel Yoko Miyashita said in a blogpost.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 27, 2016 05:23 ET (09:23 GMT)

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