The European Union has just sent Google/Alphabet a new “statement of objections” with regards to the giant company’s search results and its influence over the online advertising world. This expands the EU’s probes into Google’s practices, with the European Commission also investigating Google’s position in online shopping comparison services, and the reach of its mobile operating system, Android.
According to the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU and the one that’s handling these investigations, there’s a “broad range of additional evidence and data” to back up allegations that Google skews search results in its own favor. With regards to the shopping/price comparison service, the EU regulators say that the company “has weakened or even marginalized competition from its closest rivals”.
As part of the new accusations, the EU says that Google also abused its position in the online advertising market and hindered competition. Google’s faux pas came when the company prohibited AdSense for Search users from accepting rival search ads starting in 2006.
Google is facing record fines in many of these cases, with the company seemingly failing again and again to comply with the EU’s demands and settle the case amicably. Alphabet/Google now has ten weeks to respond to these new “objections” from the EU.