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Google Could Face a $9 Billion EU Fine For Rigging Search Results In Its Favor (independent.co.uk)
schwit1 quotes a report from The Independent: EU antitrust regulators aim to slap a hefty fine on Alphabet unit Google over its shopping service before the summer break in August, two people familiar with the matter said, setting the stage for two other cases involving the U.S. company. The European Commission's decision will come after a seven-year investigation into the world's most popular internet search engine was triggered by scores of complaints from both U.S. and European rivals. Fines for companies found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules can reach 10 percent of their global turnover, which in Google's case could be about $9 billion of its 2016 turnover. Apart from the fine, the Commission will tell Google to stop its alleged anti-competitive practices but it is not clear what measures it will order the company to adopt to ensure that rivals get equal treatment in internet shopping results. The company has also been charged with using its Android mobile operating system to squeeze out rivals and with blocking competitors in online search advertising related to its "AdSense for Search" platform. The platform allows Google to act as an intermediary for websites such as online retailers, telecoms operators or newspapers. The Commission has warned of massive fines in both cases.
Wrong. In fact the EU has the exclusive right to tell every business operating within its territory what they are and are not allowed to do, especially in terms of stifling competition (hint: its a big no).
Google is an American company, but the EU is intent on pushing their laws beyond their borders.
No... Google operates in Europe, has offices and headquarters in Europe, and must thereby follow European law. You do not get to break local laws just because you also have offices somewhere else.
The legal and economic definitions of a monopoly are different (in the US as well as the EU). A monopoly in the economic sense is a single supplier for whom there is no competition, which can therefore exert massive influence over the market. A monopoly in the legal sense is a company with a sufficiently large market share that they can act as if they were a monopoly. In the EU, Google has over 90% of the search engine market. This means that, in terms of economic impact, the other players are largely irrelevant. If Google searches are rigged to push Google products, then this will affect almost as many consumers as if they had a monopoly in the traditional economic sense and will have the same impact on the market.
This is exactly the same situation that Microsoft was in with Windows. They didn't have 100% of the desktop market, but they had a large enough share that the remaining players between them had basically no impact on the market.
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