EU Has Fined Google $2.7 Billion for Manipulating Search Results
June 27th, 2017Via: Recode:
The European Union slapped Google with a record-breaking $2.7 billion fine on Tuesday, charging that the U.S. tech giant had manipulated search results in a way that gives an “illegal advantage” to its own services while harming the company’s rivals.
The punishment — announced at a press conference by Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s leading competition official — follows a seven-year investigation into Google and requires the company to change its practices within 90 days or face additional penalties.
At issue for EU regulators is Google’s comparison shopping service, which Vestager believes the company had boosted unfairly by giving it “prominent placement” in search results — all the while having “demoted rival comparison shopping services.”
“What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” Vestager said in a statement. “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 long has rejected the EU’s charges — and in a statement Tuesday, the company maintained it displays its results in a way that helps consumers “find the products you’re looking for quickly and easily.”
