Google this week appealed a March EU antitrust ruling in which it was found to have abused its market power in online advertising. The firm hasn’t issued an announcement about the appeal, which was reported first by the UK publication The Telegraph. But it has confirmed the action without commenting further.
As for the EU, a European Commission spokesperson said simply, “the Commission will defend its decision in Court.”
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As you may recall, Google has suffered three consecutive defeats at the hands of EU regulators, and it has now launched appeals of all three.
Google was first found to have unfairly favored its own shopping services over those of rivals in Search results and was fined $2.85 billion. Then, the EC found that Google illegally undercut rivals with Android and fined the firm $5.1 billion, a record. The advertising case that Google is now appealing resulted in a $1.69 billion fine.
“Google is fined €1,49 billion for illegal practices in search advertising brokering to cement its dominant market position,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced at the time. “They shouldn’t do that – it denied consumers choice, innovative products, and fair prices.”
dontbe evil
<p>nice try… time to pay the bill</p>
PeterC
<p>Whether it’s from the US, the EU or both acting in tandem, google will not be allowed to hold all these businesses as they are, or rather in the anti competitive way they do currently. They will be compelled to “spin off” or sell certain business offerings by competition committees. Which ones though?</p>