EU orders Google to rank rival comparison-shopping vendors equally in search results
Google gives illegal advantage to its comparison shopping service, says antitrust watchdog
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union antitrust chief, in Brussels on Tuesday. In addition to the Google case, she has previously demanded that Apple pay $14.5 billion in back taxes in Ireland, opened an investigation into Amazon’s tax practices in Europe and raised concerns about Facebook’s dominance over people’s digital data. Credit Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The European Union's antitrust regulator on Tuesday fined Alphabet Inc.'s Google a record EUR2.42 billion ($2.71 billion) for favoring its own comparison-shopping service in search results and ordered the search giant to apply the same methods to rivals as its own when displaying their services in search results.
The decision could force broader changes to the way Google (GOOGL) designs its search results in Europe because it sets a possible precedent for other search services, such as travel and maps, which the EU is also scrutinizing.
