Google hit with $2.4 billion lawsuit in Europe for favoring its own shopping service

Sweden-based price comparison service PriceRunner has announced that it’s suing Google for €2.1 billion ($2.4 billion) after a European court ruled that Google breached EU antitrust laws. Last November, the European Union’s General Court upheld a decision to fine Google a record €2.42 billion (US$2.8 billion) for favoring its own comparison shopping services over rivals. 

“We are … seeking compensation for the damage Google has caused us during many years, but are also seeing this lawsuit as a fight for consumers who have suffered tremendously from Google’s infringement of the competition law for the past fourteen years and still today,” said PriceRunner CEO Mikael Lindahl. 

PriceRunner claimed that Google has a “monopoly-like position” in Europe adding that it believes it has still not complied with the EU Commission’s decision and is “abusing it’s dominant position.” As such, it claimed that traffic and profits are diverted from itself and other shopping services, and that its offers are higher than other services, harming consumers. “Since the violation is still ongoing the amount of damages increases every day, we expect the final damages amount of the lawsuit to be significantly higher,” it wrote.

Google lost its first appeal against the EU fine, but it launched another one last month, saying “we feel there are areas that require legal clarification from the European Court of Justice.” Engadget has reached out to Google for comment on the PriceRunner lawsuit. 

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

For all the latest Technology News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TechNewsBoy.com is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.