In an interview with the Financial Times, Germany’s justice minister, Heiko Maas, has stated that Google must become more transparent in regards to the algorithm that it uses within its search engine.

The request was made in light of growing pressure across Europe, owing to Google’s growing dominance over online markets.

Mr Maas said: “In the end it relates to how transparent the algorithms are that Google uses to rank its search results. When a search engine has such an impact on economic development, this is an issue we have to address.”

Earlier in the month, the European Commission reopened its antitrust investigation into the company, stating that it is greatly concerned over the way that the search engine presents information to users, especially when providing its own services over that of competitors’.

Despite this, Google has said upon previous requests that its algorithm is non-public for competitive reasons, and of course, to prevent manipulation in the search results.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive chairman, denied the accusations in a letter to the Financial Times, stating that it was not true that the company promoted its own products over competitors, and that Google presented a variety of offers and deals from a range of providers.

Greg Sterling, writing on Search Engine Land, says that:

“One of the ongoing challenges for Google’s European critics has been to show consumer harm as opposed to harm to publishers’ vested interests from Google’s alleged abuses.

“It’s very challenging to convincingly make this “consumer harm” case though perhaps not impossible.”

Will Google hand over its algorithm?

It is very doubtful, as after all, without its search algorithm, Google could have the potential of losing everything that it has built over the past 16 years.

But there is an alternative solution.

As stated in the interview with Maas, one of the few options could actually be to unbundle Google in Europe, although he views this as a drastic measure, and should be undertaken only as the very last resort.

That said, he does state that it “makes sense”, for competition and for the health of the European IT market.