Search engine giant Google has been fined a record €2.42 billion (Ksh 280billion) by the European Union regulators for skewing search results to boost it’s own shopping service.
Further to this, the European regulators have given Google 3 months to stop the illegal acts or face a daily fine of 5% of Alphaebet revenue.
The EU opened the anti-trust case in 2010 and is also probing Google’s Android mobile-phone software and AdSense online advertising service.
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager of EU said: “Google has come up with many innovative products and services that have made a difference to our lives. That’s a good thing. But Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn’t just about attracting customers by making its product better than those of its rivals. Instead, 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.
“What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.”
Google has denied any wrongdoing.
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