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Google booth at the VivaTech trade fair: more penetration with a dominant market position
Photo: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
Google is threatened with requirements from the Federal Cartel Office.
On the basis of new legal powers, the Bonn cartel watchdog determined for the first time that the Internet giant was of paramount importance across the market.
In a second step, the cartel office could now prohibit Google from practices that threaten competition.
The office has already taken the first steps in this direction.
"We have already started to deal more intensively with the processing of personal data by Google and the subject of the Google News Showcase," said Cartel Office chief Andreas Mundt: "At the same time, we are vigorously pursuing further proceedings against Amazon, Apple and Meta, formerly Facebook. «
At the beginning of last year, the legislature gave the Cartel Office new tools.
The Cartel Office will then be able to determine a dominant position of companies in the future more easily and intervene to prohibit certain actions.
Mundt had announced that the authority could "take action against anticompetitive practices by large digital corporations more quickly and more effectively."
The Cartel Office has now further determined that Google is of paramount importance for competition across all markets.
The company occupies a position of economic power "which gives it scope for behavior across markets that is not adequately controlled by the competition."
Google has stated that it will not appeal the decision, the competition authority said.
The US group has not yet received a statement.
hej / Reuters
