The decision, which comes after seven years of legal wrangling and can be appealed to EU courts, could force Google to reshape the way it presents search results for products in Europe. It could also lead Google to make broader changes because it sets precedent for other search services, such as travel and maps, which the EU is also scrutinizing.
“Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors,” said EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager. “What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules.”
Google general counsel Kent Walker said the company will review the decision and consider an appeal, adding that “we respectfully disagree with the conclusions announced today.”
In its decision, the EU detailed what it said were years of abuses, including demoting the results of rivals and artificially promoting its own shopping service above all other results. Those changes led to what the EU said was a 45-fold traffic increase in the U.K. and a 35-fold increase in Germany, with drops of traffic to rivals of 85% in the U.K. and 92% in Germany.
In response, the EU more than doubled what had been the bloc’s previous record penalty for a company allegedly abusing its market position– a EUR1.06 billion fine on Intel in 2009.