European Union imposed €2.4 billion fine against Google in antitrust case 

Recently, European Union General Court has confirmed the 2017 decision by the European Commission against Google. The original decision found that the company had violated antitrust law using a search engine. Google was accused of upgrading its comparison and purchasing service while reducing rival offerings.

Although Google’s parent company, Alphabet, had filed an appeal against the decision earlier, the Supreme Court has now dismissed the appeal, thus accepting a fine of $2.4 billion ($2.8 billion). The resources can now appeal to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The EU General Assembly said there was enough evidence to suggest that Google’s actions with its purchasing comparison tool were anti-competitive (Via). The court ruled that Google violated its anti-infidelity law by “favoring its comparative shopping service on its standard results pages for better display and better placement while retracting results from competing services on those pages using standard algorithms.”

Google facing many of EU antitrust lawsuits

This could also affect other Google pending antitrust lawsuits in Europe. The EU Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has previously held that US technology firms are violating regional laws of dishonesty. Google is also facing two other antitrust charges related to Android and AdSense. These cases are currently under appeal.

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In 2018, EU antitrust regulators fined Google €4.34 billion for allegedly pressuring competition with its search engine. While trying to challenge the decision, the tech giant criticized regulators for ignoring Apple’s infidelity infringement.

Google has earned more than $8 billion in EU antitrust fines over the past decade. If recent decisions are indicative, something else may be on the way.