look news india
London: Google has lost its appeal in the European Court against the fine of 2.4 billion euros (about Rs 22,600 crore) imposed by the European Union in the anti-trust shopping case. It has been proven that Google's own shopping recommendations give it an illegal advantage over its competitors in search results. With this, the anti-trust case against Google is over, it may have to pay a fine due to losing the appeal.
The court said that with this decision, the court has rejected Google's appeal and upheld the decision given by the General Court. In the Commission's 2017 decision, the Silicon Valley giant was accused of unfairly directing visitors to Google's shopping service, giving it an illegal advantage over its rivals.
The fines are the biggest of the three imposed on Google in the past decade by the European Union since it began cracking down on the tech industry. Google said in its brief statement that we are disappointed with the court's decision, which is based on a specified set of facts.
The company said that since 2017 it has made changes to provide a level playing field to competitors in accordance with the panel's decision. It has started auctioning shopping search listings and thus it can bid for other shopping services alongside Google. “Our approach has been successful for more than seven years and has generated billions of clicks on more than 800 comparison shopping services,” Google said. At the same time, the company appealed to the court. But the EU's General Court rejected the company's application in 2021, and an advisor to the Court of Justice later recommended that its appeal be dismissed as well. European consumer group BEUC welcomed the court's decision, saying the verdict shows why the bloc's competition law exists in digital markets. He said Google had harmed millions of European consumers. Director General Augustin said, it has made rival shopping services virtually invisible. Google's illegal practices prevented consumers from accessing relatively cheap products and useful product information from rival shopping services. This includes everything from clothes to washing machines. Google still has two appeals pending against two EU antitrust penalties. This includes the Android mobile operating system and the AdSense advertising platform. In this, the EU's General Court has upheld the fine of 4.125 billion euros imposed by the Commission in 2022. Apart from this, they were fined 1.49 billion euros in the AdSense case, on which the decision is yet to come.