Europe’s lobbing Google search antitrust violations this week, outright accusing the world’s most dominant search engine of once more rigging results in its own favor, even across the pond.
Thus, if the European Commission has its way now, their pending lawsuit against the online company will be the biggest of its kind since the one similarly brought eons ago against the Microsoft corporation.
Microsoft’s “Bing” is still a strong contender overseas, but, regardless, Google still currently has a stranglehold of about 90-percent of the European search market, the source of Europe’s latest internet ennui.
As a result, if allegations prove true regarding how Google’s market share is actually being manipulated and maintained there -- illegally -- then the tech giant can expect some huge fines as a result.
Billions, to be exact.
“Everyone should have equal treatment,” asserts Thomas Vinje, attorney for FairSearch Europe, which represents Google-search’s smaller foreign rivals. “Google should apply its own algorithm fairly to everything, including its own services.”
And strange bedfellows Microsoft and Yelp, American competitors who have much to gain by Europe’s online trust-busting mission, couldn’t more wholeheartedly agree.
But paying a whopping fine and apologizing won’t fully solve the Google search antitrust violations though, because European officials are also independently pursuing the company for its tax practices and online privacy policies as well.
The entire conflict has been simmering for the past five years or so. However, with financial investors worldwide suddenly acting skittish, and some analysts now predicting a major markets correction of 5 to 10-percent within the next six months, astronomical penalties couldn’t come at a worse time.
Even for the likes Google.
