EU Strikes Google With 2.42 Billion Euro Fine for 'Illegal Practices' on Online Shopping Services
The European Union struck Google with a fine of up to 2.42 billion Euros (around $2.76 billion) over alleged "illegal practices" in how the company operates with online shopping services.
The European Commission, who decided on the matter, explained: "Google has abused its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service."
European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager scrutinized Google for taking advantage of its position as the operator of a widely-used search engine and "promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors," which are illegal practices under the EU's antitrust policies.
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Google started its online shopping comparison services in the European region in 2004 with a particular search engine called "Froogle" which was later on renamed as "Google Shopping" in 2013. According to the EU, Google Shopping lets consumers and internet users find and compare prices of services, products, promotional deals from all types of manufacturers or retailers.
The EU argues: "Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service" by placing Google Shopping results "at or near the top of the search results."
Meanwhile, the European Commission claimed Google applies the "generic search algorithms" only to competing online shopping services, which leads to even some of the highly-rated shopping services, other than Google's own, to commonly appear as average search results.
The organization maintained that Google's breaches have severe implications on market competition among online shopping services. The European Commission stated they have evidence that shows the online traffic for Google Shopping's rivals drastically dropped by 85 percent in the United Kingdom, almost 92 percent in Germany, and around 80 percent in France.
Once the European Commission's decision is final, Google has been ordered to cease from doing its old practices within 90 days. Google is then required to apply "equal treatment to rival comparison shopping services and its own service."
Meanwhile, Google responded to the EU's decisions in a statement and said: "We respectfully disagree with the conclusions announced today ... We will review the commission's decision in detail as we consider an appeal, and we look forward to continuing to make our case."
