In April 2015, the Commission formally accused the Web giant of favoring its own shopping products in search results, and demoting those of its competitors.
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Google also hindered competition for online ads with its AdSense for Search product to place advertising on websites, including retailers, telecommunications operators and newspapers, the European Union said.
Google has been hit with more charges from the European Commission, adding to the antitrust headaches the Internet giant is facing in Europe.
The company’s conduct “has weakened or even marginalised competition from its closest rivals”, they said in a statement.
Google said “October through December are traditionally the biggest months for both travel and shopping, and this year we expect mobile to play its biggest role ever”, on its blog. Click on the ad, and Google and the third party receive a commission. The contracts also required Google’s ads to be placed in “the most prominent-and profitable-space on the page for advertisements that came from Google”, while also requiring that Google be given a voice in how to display competing ads on the rest of the third-party pages.
The European Union regulator’s have yet again attacked Google and its Parent company that is alphabet I n c.
It’s no secret that Google and the EU’s anti-competitive practices department have a rocky relationship.
“We believe that our innovations and product improvements have increased choice for European consumers and promote competition”, the spokesperson told AFP.
“It means consumers may not see the most relevant results to their search queries”, wrote European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager in an official release. The Federal Trade Commission is also probing Google’s Android OS to examine concerns over market dominance, reported The Wall Street Journal earlier this year.
2008 – US Justice Department blocks a deal to allow Yahoo to run Google search ads on Yahoo sites.
The Commission also said it had reinforced its earlier preliminary conclusion that Google had abused its dominant position by systematically favouring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages.
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Google’s response will be the company’s last chance to avoid sanctions, which could amount to fines up to 10 percent of the group’s annual global sales or $7.
