Pune/ Brussels: The European Commission (EC) has fined Google $2.7 billion for breaching EU anti-trust rules. Google has abused its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service (Google Shopping), the commission said in a press release on Tuesday.
The company must now end the conduct within 90 days or face penalty payments of up to 5 per cent of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The fine broke the previous EU record for a monopoly case against US chipmaker Intel of 1.06 billion euros.
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said, “Google has come up with many innovative products and services that have made a difference. But Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn’t just about attracting customers by making its product better.
Instead, Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors. What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules.”
