Google fined  £2.13bn (€2.4bn) by Brussels, as search dominance is abused

 

Brussels has hit Google with a £2.13bn (€2.4bn)  antitrust fine fro abusing its dominance in search.

The European Commission ended its seventh-year competition investigation concluding that the company had abused its near-monopoly in online search to “give illegal advantage” to its own shopping service.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said Google  “denied other companies the chance to compete” and left consumers without “genuine choice”.

Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results demoting those of competitors. What Google has done is illegal under EU Antitrust rules”.

Google’s attempts to settle its case with the commission sparked a backlash in France and Germany, with ministers putting pressure on Brussels to take a tougher approach, the pressure, in fact, applied by big European telecoms and media groups including Germany’s Axel  Springer.

Google said it “ respectfully disagreed with the findings and said, “ We will review the commission’s decision in detail as we consider an appeal and we look forward to continuing to make our case”.