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EU Poised To Fine Google More Than $1 Billion in Antitrust Case (marketwatch.com)
Google is braced for a fine of potentially more than 1bn euro ($1.18 billion) as Brussels prepares to make the first of three antitrust decisions on the search group's practices, the first sanction by a leading competition regulator on the way it operates. From a report: The penalty, expected to be announced in the coming weeks, could exceed the record 1.1 billion euro bill slapped on Intel, in 2009 for anti-competitive behavior in the computer-chip market, the two people told The Times. The European Commission's antitrust body declined to comment to MarketWatch on the FT report, but referred to the latest steps taken in the case against Google. In July last year, the commission reiterated its conclusion that the search giant had "abused its dominant position by systematically favoring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages." Google and its parent company Alphabet were then given 10 weeks to respond to the findings. Reuters reported last month that Google had attempted to settle the dispute with the EU three times in the last six years, but the sides had failed to reach a compromise.
systematically favoring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages.
I have problems with Google, but .... fining them for favoring its own shopping service? Come on. It's their search engine, and their shopping service, and I don't like it and don't use it. Easy enough.
What they need to be fined for is collecting data on people who are NOT their customers and turning the entire web not to mention email into a giant surveillance network with Google trackers embedded everywhere. Most people have no idea how to avoid the Google Big Data Machine even if they are trying to avoid all Google products and services and have never signed up for anything with Google.
Fine them for that, not for merely favoring their own services.
This is really just the Germans getting even for WW2.
No, the bureaucrats are throwing a tantrum over Britain's exit, and are hoping to make back some of the money they were milking the U.K. for.