Google is fined £2bn for breach of rules

GOOGLE HAS been slapped with a record fine of 2.42bn euros (£2.1bn) by Europe’s competition watchdog after breaching antitrust rules with its online shopping service.

The European Commission has told the internet search giant that it now has 90 days to stop the practice or face a penalty of up to five per cent of the average daily turnover of the firm’s parent company, Alphabet.

However, Google said it was considering launching an appeal against the commission once it had reviewed the decision.

The penalty comes after the competition watchdog launched an investigation into Google Shopping seven years ago, amid complaints it gave the service a prominent position on the internet search engine, while rival services were demoted.

The watchdog said Google was the most dominant search engine across the 31 countries in the European Economic Area (EEA).

It found that Google had handed its comparison shopping service an illegal advantage in 13 EEA countries, including in the United Kingdom and Germany where it was launched in 2008.

The abuse caused traffic to Google’s shopping service to jump 45-fold in the United Kingdom, 35-fold in Germany and 19fold in France.

However, the demotions to rival websites triggered sharp reduction in traffic, with some UK sites seeing visitor numbers plunge 85 per cent.