欧盟反垄断专员Margrethe Vestager在2014年上任后将谷歌列为头号目标。值得注意的是，同日，这名专员还成功推翻了苹果(AAPL.US)一项在下级法院的胜诉，这场官司涉及苹果在爱尔兰的130亿欧元(144亿美元)税收法案。Google was fined a record 2.4 billion euros (2.6 billion US dollars) by the European Union for abusing its monopoly power to suppress competitors' shopping services, and Google failed to reverse this ruling.
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Google (GOOGL.US) was fined a record 2.4 billion euros (2.6 billion US dollars) by the European Union for abusing its monopoly power to suppress competitors' shopping services, and Google failed to reverse this ruling.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg upheld a landmark 2017 ruling that found the US tech giant illegally used its dominant position in search engines to provide higher rankings for its product listings.
EU antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager listed Google as the number one target after taking office in 2014. Notably, on the same day, the commissioner also successfully overturned a case won by Apple (AAPL.US) in a lower court. The lawsuit involved Apple's 13 billion euro (14.4 billion US dollars) tax bill in Ireland.
The EU antitrust enforcement agency's focus on Google isn't just about the company's search dominance. This case involving a shopping service is the first of three fines, the three fines totaling more than 8 billion euros.
A Google spokesperson said the company was “disappointed” by the court's ruling, saying that the 2017 proposal to address the EU's concerns would help bring more clicks to other shopping services.
Following this shopping case, the company was fined a record 4.3 billion euros in 2018 for alleged restrictive contract terms that prevented tablet and phone manufacturers from adding competing apps and web browsers to Android devices.
Less than a year later, the company was fined €1.49 billion for thwarting ad competitors through an exclusive online advertising agreement for its AdSense for Search product.
Crucially, the fourth and probably the last accusation launched by the European Union against Google's business under Vestager's leadership may have brought the most dangerous punishment. The Danish commissioner warned that the only way to rectify Google's dominance in ad tech is to forcibly split the company's business in this area — which would put EU regulators on a path similar to the US Department of Justice, which is seeking a similar split.
EU competition regulators hope that Google's behavior will be completely corrected through a comprehensive new regulation that came into effect last year — the Digital Markets Act.
