The company has yet to respond to a third EU antitrust complaint – regarding complaints that it uses its Android mobile OS as a ‘trojan horse’ to promote its own products and services at the expense of rivals, techcrunch.com reports.
Europe’s investigation into complaints about Google Shopping has dragged on for some six years at this point, although the Commission only issued a formal Statement of Objections (SO) in April 2015, extending that in July 2016 with further objections, when it also issued objections against AdSense.
“We have further strengthened our case that Google has unduly favoured its own comparison shopping service in its general search result pages,” said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager in July. “It means consumers may not see the most relevant results to their search queries. We have also raised concerns that Google has hindered competition by limiting the ability of its competitors to place search adverts on third party websites, which stifles consumer choice and innovation.”
Google points to rising usage of mobiles and retailers’ “dedicated apps” as bolstering its case that consumers have changed how they shop online, and therefore that shifts in Google search results merely reflect that changing reality.
The EC could fine Google up to 10% of its global revenue – some USD 7.5 billion – if it finds the company has breached European competition law.
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