The General Court of the European Union rejected Google's appeal against the decision of the EU Commission to impose a 2.42 billion
euro
fine on
the company for abusing its dominant position by giving an illegal advantage to its purchase comparison service. Google Shopping.
The Court rejected the appeal of the search engine giant and its parent company, Alphabet, as a whole, recognizing "the anti-competitive nature of the controversial practice" implemented with its Shopping service. "Google has distanced itself from the competition on the merits" through a more favorable positioning of its purchase comparison service, instead downgrading competing services, relegated to the generic results column.
The Luxembourg judges believe that, at the end of its investigation launched in 2010 following the complaints filed by rivals TripAdvisor and Twenga, the European Commission "correctly found harmful effects on competition" of the practice implemented by Google in 11 Member States, including the 'Italy, the United Kingdom and Norway. "Google is still unable to demonstrate any increase in efficiency related to this practice that would offset its negative effects on competition", the EU judges write, noting that, "even if the algorithms for the classification of generic results or the criteria for positioning and the display of the results of Google's specialized products may, as such, represent pro-competitive service improvements,this does not justify the practice in question, namely the unequal treatment of the results of Google's comparative shopping service and the results of competing comparative shopping services. "The Mountain View giant now has the option to challenge the ruling before the court higher, the EU Court of Justice.
"Ads on Shopping help people find the products they are looking for quickly and easily, and help merchants reach potential customers.
Today's judgment, which we will examine in detail, refers to a series of very specific facts already in the 2017 we made changes to comply with the decision of the European Commission. Our approach has worked successfully for more than three years, generating billions of clicks for more than 700 comparison shopping services ": is the comment of a spokesperson for Google.
