Google has just lost its biggest regulatory battle!
Google has been hit with a record-breaking $2.7 billion (€2.42 billion) fine by the European antitrust officials for unfairly manipulating search results since 2008.
After a lengthy seven-year investigation that was launched in 2010 after several rivals complaint, the European Commission on Tuesday imposed this 'biggest even financial penalty' against the internet tech giant for breaking EU competition law.
by using its search dominance to distort search-engine results to promote own shopping comparison service at the top of all search results.
Comparison shopping services rely to a large extent on traffic to be competitive. European Commission says in a press release.
The evidence shows that consumers click far more often on results that are more visible, (i.e. the results appearing higher up in Google's search results.)
More traffic leads to more clicks and generates revenue.
The Commission says the amount of penalty has been calculated from Google’s income from its comparison shopping service in Europe. Google’s total revenue in the year 2016 was almost $90 Billion.
Source : http://thehackernews.com/2017/06/google-search-antitrust-fine.html