Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has agreed to stop favoring its shopping services, within search results, as part of a settlement reached with the European regulators in June. The world’s most popular search engine has submitted plans of how it will achieve the same in compliance with initial orders.
Google Illegal Search Practices
The announcement comes after the company was hit with a $2.6 billion fine on claims it’s used its market dominance position to suppress competition from rival services. In June, the European Commission accused the company of giving prominent placement on search results to its shopping services while demoting those of its rivals.
The company was asked to detail a plan of how it will end the illegal practice in addition to stopping it before September 28, 2017. Failure to do so could see the tech giant hit with a 5% fine on its average daily worldwide turnover, which currently stands at about $12 million.
"Google will continue to be under an obligation to keep the Commission informed of its actions by submitting periodic reports," a spokesman for the EU executive said after saying the proposal had been received.
Google EU’S Antitrust Settlement
The newly tabled plan brings to three, the number of settlement offers that Google has tabled over allegations it suppresses competition in the EU. Most of the offers have failed to come into effect on the EU executive arm deeming them insufficient mostly under political pressure from Germany and France.
Previous settlement offers were also scrapped following complaints from Google’s rivals who have consistently insisted they were not sufficient in curtailing Google’s dominance. It is highly likely that the firms led by the likes of Yelp could still file complaints should they deem the new settlement offer insufficient.
In addition to the search results debacle, Google is also staring at a landmark fine as the EU continues to investigate it, over practices related to the Android operating system. There has been growing concerns that the tech giant uses its leading market position to give its apps an unfair advantage at the expense of similar apps from third parties in the operating system.
Google was up by 0.82% in Tuesday’s trading session to end the day at $935.75 a share.
