EU Supreme Court adviser recommends Google pay €2.42 billion antitrust fine

According to news from this site on January 15, Google was fined hugely by the European Union in 2017 for allegedly violating antitrust rules. Google has since been trying to overturn the ruling through a lengthy appeals process. However, for Google, this process is coming to an end, and it may not end well.

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A senior adviser to the European Union’s top court said the Google fine should be upheld. While this is only a recommendation, past cases have shown that judges often follow the advice of advisors. Bloomberg reports.

Juliane Kokott, General Counsel of the Court of Justice of the European Union, said: “Google has used its dominant position in the market for general search services to serve itself by giving priority to the results of its own comparison shopping services. Provide convenience." Kokot believes that the judge should maintain the fine of 2.42 billion euros (note on this site: currently about 19.021 billion yuan) against Google.

The initial debate centered around whether Google gained an advantage in online shopping through its search tools. The EU believes that Google's embedding of price comparison tools directly into search results gives it an unfair competitive advantage and makes it difficult to shake Google's monopoly in the search field, especially for smaller EU companies. As a result, the EU fined Google €2.42 billion in 2017.

Google emphasized in the statement that regardless of the outcome of the appeal, they will continue to implement improvement measures. These measures have been in place for a number of years and they continue to work with the European Commission to ensure compliance with regulations. In addition, Google also said that they will carefully study the consultant's opinion and wait for the court's formal ruling.

Google has been the focus of EU antitrust investigations, and its digital advertising business and potential antitrust practices have often been questioned. Since 2017, Google has been fined more than $10 billion worldwide.

The European Union is strengthening its supervision of technology giants. The recently passed "Digital Market Act" lists Google as a "gatekeeper" and requires it to open some core platform services to other platforms. Violations of the regulations will result in further fines.

However, Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager last Thursday to discuss on competition issues among large technology companies. In addition to Google, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other US technology giants also participated in the meeting. Hopefully, through this meeting, tech companies and the EU can find common ground and move forward in a way that balances innovation and competition. The meeting provided a platform for all parties to address growing competition issues and laid the foundation for future cooperation.

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