Google ’s 41 competitors in Europe today issue a joint letter to EU antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager urging the EU to take action against Google. Further action was due to Google’s failure to comply with a 2017 ruling issued by the European Union.
As early as June 2017, the European Commission announce that Google favored its own service Google Shopping, in search results. They decide to impose a fine of 2.42 billion euros (about 2.7 billion U.S. dollars) on Google. They aslo ask Google to stop this unfair competition behavior.
Vistag said in a statement at the time: “It is undeniable that Google has developed many innovative products and services that have change our lives to a great extent. However, Google has abuse its dominant position in the search market to promote its own Serving Google Shopping, suppressing competitors’ services”.
Today, 41 competitors from 21 European Union countries sent a joint letter to Vestag. Saying that Google did not comply with the EU ruling in 2017. Also, did not provide a level playing field for competitors. So it urged the EU to take action against Google.
This is also the first time in history that so many competitors have called for the EU to take further action against Google. These companies include Idealo, Europe’s second largest shopping parity service. Ceeno, Poland’s largest parity website, Kelkoo, UK parity website, and Foundem and Heureka in the Czech Republic.
The competitor said in a joint letter: “We contacted you (Vestag) because a company like ours was threatened by Google. Which cleverly avoided previous rulings.”
The competitors also state that, in fact, Google’s proposal to allow competitors to bid for ad space at the top of search pages did not increase traffic to their sites. “As a result, more and more competitors have been or will be forced out of the market by Google”.
In the letter, the companies did not mention any specific remedies.
Earlier this week, Google executive Oliver Bethell told the Informa conference. That about 600 companies are currently participating in the auction of search page advertising space. Bessel sees it as evidence that auctions promote competition.
But Google ’s competitors say, “Google ranks and displays its own shopping comparison service more favorably on the search page. In fact its abuse has never ended”.
In fact, Mr. Westergues said earlier this month that he was concern about the lack of significant traffic from Google competitors.
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