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Google $2.7B EU Fine

AnaSCI

ADMINISTRATOR
Sep 17, 2003
8,625
18
38
Won't make a dent. Google's huge..

Google Slapped With $2.7 Billion EU Fine Over Search Results

Google abused its dominant position in the search engine market to illegally promote its comparison shopping service, the European Union's top antitrust authority ruled Tuesday, slapping the company with a €2.42 billion ($2.72 billion) fine.

The consequence could be still greater differences in the ways Google presents search results to users in the U.S. and to those in the EU.

The European Commission gave the the company 90 days to change its ways or face additional fines of up to 5 percent of average daily worldwide sales of parent company Alphabet for each day that the infringement continued.

The Commission's ruling targets the way Google uses its search service to promote another service, "Google Shopping", previously known as Google Product Search and Froogle.

Google gives its own service a prominent place in its general search results, above that of rival comparison shopping services, the Commission said, noting that even the most highly ranked competing service appears on average only on page four of Google's search results.

"As a result, competitors are much less likely to be clicked on," said EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, during a news conference Tuesday.

Google responded: "People usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches."

Competitors saw their traffic drop by as much as 90 percent as a result of Google's behavior, Vestager said, while Google gained revenue by driving visitors to its own service.
 

odin

AnaSCI VET
Feb 2, 2007
1,769
0
0
Don't see them having an issue paying that or finding ways to continue doing what they're doing.