The Wall Street Journal | By: Sam Schechner | Updated June 27, 2017 7:08 a.m. ET:
EU orders Google to treat rival comparison-shopping services equally in its search results.
The European Union’s antitrust regulator on Tuesday fined Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL -1.42% Google a record €2.42 billion ($2.71 billion) for favoring its own comparison-shopping service in search results and ordered the search giant to apply the same methods to rivals as its own when displaying their services.
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.”
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