More than 40 companies are calling on European Union regulators to step up enforcement of antitrust rules that were meant to level the playing field among shopping services within Google’s search results. In 2017, Google was fined more than US$2.3 billion for favoring its shopping service over others but was primarily left to resolve the problem independently.
The companies contend that has not happened. “Google’s chosen mechanism to comply with the Google Search (Shopping) decision is both economically ineffective and legally insufficient,” they said in their letter to European Commission regulators.
The European Commission says it continues to monitor the market and will hold “technical workshops with interested stakeholders to gauge third-party views on compliance” starting at the year’s end or early 2023.
