EU court upholds €2.4bn fine for Google’s shopping comparison service

The Court of Justice of the European Union has upheld a fine of €2.4 billion imposed on Google for abusing its dominant position and favouring its own shopping comparison service.

In 2017, the European Commission found that the technology giant had given preference to the results of its comparison shopping service in 13 countries.

It found that Google had promoted its search results in boxes with accompanying attractive image and text information.

By contrast, the search results of competing comparison shopping services appeared as simple generic results displayed in the form of links and were prone to being demoted by adjustment algorithms in Google’s general results pages, said the Court.

Google and its parent company Alphabet appealed the fine, which was the largest ever imposed by the Commission at the time.

A spokesperson for Google told National Technology News: “We are disappointed with the decision of the Court. This judgment relates to a very specific set of facts. We made changes back in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s decision.

“Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services.”

In September 2022, Google lost its fight to overturn a €4.3 billion fine, as European courts agreed on a ruling by EU antitrust regulators which found the company had used its android operating system to surpass its rivals.

The court backed the EU regulator’s ruling that Google had breached competition rules by requiring phone manufacturers to install Google’s browser and search apps as a condition for carrying Google’s Play app store.