The European Commission has fined Google a record-breaking €2.42 billion for antitrust violations pertaining to its Google’s Shopping search comparison service — in what is widely considered the most significant antitrust ruling in Europe since the 2004 Microsoft decision.
To be honest, although this fine seems unfair, we’d rather see the EU force Google to pay back companies’ money for FAKE CLICKS & AD FRAUD. The money should be repaid to corporations and shareholders, rather than to corrupt entities such as the EU.
In it’s finding the EU states that:
- Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google’s comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results.
- Google has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results: rival comparison shopping services appear in Google’s search results on the basis of Google’s generic search algorithms. Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping services are demoted. Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival service appears on average only on page four of Google’s search results, and others appear even further down. Google’s own comparison shopping service is not subject to Google’s generic search algorithms, including such demotions.
