The Court of Justice has ruled that Google Shopping’s practice of favouring its own shopping search results over competitor’s services “was discriminatory.”
The judges noted that EU law forbids any behaviour that prevents “the maintenance or growth of competition in a market in which the degree of competition is already weakened, precisely because of the presence of one or more undertakings in a dominant position.”
“In particular, the conduct of undertakings in a dominant position that has the effect of hindering competition on the merits and is thus likely to cause harm to individual undertakings and consumers is prohibited,” said the EU judges.
As such, the ruling cannot be appealed.
Accumulated over €8.25bn in EU antitrust fines
In 2017, the European Commission had fined Google for using its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.
A tribunal at a lower court had endorsed the EU’s decision in 2021, but Google appealed to the EU Court of Justice in a bid to get the decision overturned.
Over the past decade, Google has accumulated over €8.25bn in EU antitrust fines for anti-competitive practices.
Parent company Alphabet has also challenged two rulings involving its Android mobile operating system and AdSense advertising service and is now awaiting the judgements.
In recent years, the European Commission implemented the Digital Market Acts (DMA), which forbids tech giants from favouring their own products and services over competitors on their own platforms.
Just this year, Google was forced to make changes to product search to comply with the DMA. It is also still under EU investigation for non-compliance with the DMA over “self-preferencing” on Google Search and its app store.
