Google Faces New Antitrust Law in Europe

“We’re an example of results,” said Michal Feix, Seznam’s former CEO, and now leads his policy and legal work as an outside consultant. Without new laws, “you can’t compete,” he said.

Google says its success in the Czech Republic is the result of building a superior service. Checks choose our products because they “help people find the information they’re looking for, and we make thousands of improvements each year,” Google said in a statement.

In the Czech Republic, Seznam’s history goes back to the initial enthusiasm for the Internet.

Seznam’s founder and owner, Ivo Lukacovic, recalled a childhood without money; His family didn’t have a car or a color television. In 1989, when the country was still part of Czechoslovakia, he joined his classmates in mass demonstrations known as the Velvet Revolution, which contributed to the downfall of the ruling Communist Party.

“The regime has collapsed and the era of economic freedom has begun,” Mr. Lukacovic said on a recent stormy morning outside Prague. “I went to college because I played with computers,” he added.

At 22, Mr. Lukacovic left the Czech Technical University in Prague after creating Seznam, which means “list” in Czech. It started as a recommendation site of about 10 Czech websites to visit. A search engine was added in 1998; e-mail, maps and other services came years later.

After Google opened in the country in 2006, the company continued to grow. Seznam’s search engine was designed for Czech speakers and added services like unlimited email storage to keep up with Google’s offerings. Population of the Czech Republic in 2008 10.5 million It was the only place in the 31-country European Economic Area the size of North Carolina where Google wasn’t the leading search engine.

By 2010, Seznam’s position began to change. Google has invested heavily in developing its non-English language services and has sought to endear itself to Czech citizens with efforts such as the following. digitization of old books Held in the 18th century Baroque library in Prague’s Old Town.