European Commission officials on Tuesday fined Google 2.42 billion Euro (Rs 175 billion), for unfairly favouring some of its own search services over those of its rivals. The fine levied is the biggest ever in this type of antitrust case.
The findings of the European Commission state that Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping services, and demoted rival services.
For example, when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine to compare similar products based on their prices, the results for Google’s own comparison shopping services are displayed at or near the top. The company has demoted rivals in searches by including a number of criteria in its search algorithms. According to TechCrunch, as a result of these measures, even a top ranked rival shopping service shows up only on the fourth page of a Google search result.
“What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s antitrust chief, said according to The New York Times. “It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.”
Google also faces two separate charges under the region’s competition rules related to its mobile software Android, and some of its advertising products.
But the company denies allegations that it has violated Europe’s tough competition laws, saying that its digital services have helped the region’s digital economy grow and are used by hundreds of millions of Europeans each day. It also claims that there is a lot of online competition in Europe, particularly from Amazon and ebay. Google may now choose to appeal the fine.
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