Google in Race to Deflect EU Fines as Shopping Foes Cry Foul

Google faces a Monday deadline to defend changes to its shopping service that left old foes clamoring for a new wave of European Union antitrust fines, according to Bloomberg.

Still smarting from last year’s record 2.4 billion euro penalty, Google must submit the first report to the EU on how it has met a strict demand from regulators to give smaller competitors a fairer deal. Failing to comply with an EU antitrust order can cost as much as 5 percent of global daily revenue.

Long-time opponent Foundem reckons Google is “actively inviting“ fines of about $12 million a day. In a similar fight more than a decade ago, Microsoft was fined 280.5 million euros for disobeying EU demands.

Kelkoo, one of the companies buying ad slots, and Foundem, which filed the first complaint about Google’s shopping business, have both called for fines. Penalties aren’t automatic. The EU could negotiate changes with Google or require it to do more. It would need to open a new investigation and set formal objections before it could decide on further punishment.

What precisely Google has to do is not clear. The European Commission says Google has to give equal treatment to rival comparison shopping services and its own service, "not more, not less." How that happens is "up to Google to achieve and implement.

The EU "is collecting a lot of data from all sides to get the full picture," Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief, told reporters. There’s no fixed threshold that would trigger an investigation into Google’s compliance and it depends on whether the model works, she said.

"We have already requested information on the operation of Google’s measures from Google and other market participants," the EU’s press office said. "Of course, as part of our monitoring we also listen to what those most directly affected by the practices in question have to say. Commissioner Vestager and her team are meeting with a variety of stakeholders and take their views seriously.