Google, the Search Engine giant from the U.S., has been fined with a record $2.7 billion (€ 2.4 billion) by European Commission on the grounds of showing unfair search results to the European customers.
EU comes up with this judgement after a seven years long investigation of the Google search algorithm. The company is found guilty of favoring its own shopping comparison service. This is the largest amount of antitrust penalty EU has asked some company to pay, after the € 1 billion fine on Intel in 2009.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU Competition commissioner, stated in a
press release,
“What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. The company has abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors. 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."
Though the commissioner has praised Google for launching many innovative and life-changing services and products, but also she told that hundreds of companies, including some based in the U.S., complained about the way Google displayed its shopping service. Also, she said that Google's competitors could claim compensation in national courts within the EU.
The company, however, disagrees with the decision, and it is now clear how Google will act against this decision. The company is all set to appeal this decision in EU courts which will at least, if not flips the coin, delay the final resolution for years, just like the Intel’s case that is still in court.
This is what Google has said via a
blog post,
“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."
This was not the only case against Google in European Commission. Two more antitrust cases are under investigation – one for the deals that Google makes with Android device manufacturers, and another, against illegal practices in its AdSense businees. And, interestingly, EU is powerful enough to impose a penalty of upto 10 percent of Google’s annual revenue, in each case. Also, now other componies can also file lawsuit against Google based on this investigation report and judgement.
This all indicates that the most prominent flower of Sillicaon Valley has a long way of thrones to walk on.