Google resolute in face of EU ultimatum Google on Wednesday hit back at an EU ultimatum for it to stop its allegedly anti-competitive business practices, with a firm denial of wrongdoing that will dent the European Commission's hopes of a quick settlement. Giving his first response to the commission's demands, Eric Schmidt, the US group's executive chairman, made clear his reluctance to bow to imprecise allegations that his company is abusing its dominance. We disagree that we are in violation, until they are more precise on what area of the law we are in violation of. Give us the precise data, the precise problem," Mr Schmidt told the audience at Google's Big Tent conference near London on Wednesday. Joaquín Almunia, the EU's top competition official, on Monday gave Google "a matter of weeks" to make a serious offer to address his concerns and head off formal charges and a hefty fine. Mr Schmidt's comments underline how difficult the pre-charge settlement talks will be, but do not entirely close the door to a deal. He said he had "a nice conversation" with Mr Almunia last week that was "very polite." The Commission will in coming days give Google a more detailed oral briefing on its competition concerns. These relate to Google favouring its own products in search results, copying information without permission and shutting out rivals in the advertising market. While it will be given a broad indication of the legal arguments underpinning the EU concerns, Google will have to make a significant and credible offer to settle before it will be given a written summary of the case against it. The settlement talks could run for several months. But if Google is unwilling to make an early proposal to resolve the commission's concerns within the next few weeks, Mr Almunia has it made clear he will serve the US group with formal charges. The Commission has the power to fine Google up to 10 per cent of its global revenues and force it to change its behaviour or restructure, without requiring a court order. Complainants including Expedia, TripAdvisor and Microsoft have accused Google of promoting its own mapping, travel and other products ahead of rivals in its search engine results, and many of them are hoping to see Google end this practice. Mr Schmidt is still unwilling to admit there is any need for change. He said the commission was merely confused about how the company's search operated. We intermix the results from different searches and that is where it gets tricky. That is where we have the dispute," Mr Schmidt said. As far as we can tell we have designed a system that is pro-competitive and positive for end users. We made the decision after a serious amount of user testing," he added. Mr Schmidt reiterated that competition was "just one click away" for the search engine company, a statement with which it has repeatedly countered accusations of being too dominant in the search engine market.