Google has been fined $2.7 billion by the European Union for providing an “illegal advantage” to its own services in search results.
The EU believes Google is “abusing” its search engine dominance by ranking its own services ahead of competitors. Google has 90 days to change its practices in Europe or face further penalties.
This decision follows a seven-year investigation that focused primarily on Google’s comparison shopping service. The EU contends that this service is unfairly positioned above rival comparison shopping services.
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager stated in a press release:
“… Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn’t just about attracting customers by making its product better than those of its rivals. Instead, Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors.”
Google has refuted the EU’s claims from the start and released a statement following the decision.
Ken Walker, Google’s general counsel, states:
“We believe the European Commission’s online shopping decision underestimates the value of those kinds of fast and easy connections. While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data shows that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches.”
While addressing the EU’s allegations, Walker pointed to competitive online shopping destinations like Amazon and eBay, which have grown during the investigation period.
As it “respectfully” disagrees with the EU’s conclusions, Google will be considering an appeal and will continue to make its case.
