Europe threatens to fine Google in competition case

If Google does not come with further concessions in a European competition case, an official competition case will be opened and the company can expect a fine. So said the European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquín Almúnia.

According to Almúnia, a formal ‘statement of protest’ is the ‘next logical step’ in the investigation, he says, according to the BBC, unless the company comes with a settlement proposal with more concessions. A formal statement of protest would mean that the company would be fined.

The amount of that fine can be considerable: Microsoft had to pay a fine of half a billion euros for linking Windows Media Player with Windows. The fine can be a maximum of 10 percent of the annual turnover; in the case of Google, that could be a fine of 6 billion dollars, or 4.6 billion euros. Moreover, Almúnia warns according to The Guardian, the fine for Google may be higher than that of Microsoft: according to him, there are more problems with Google than with the software giant from Redmond.

The European Commission is investigating whether Google is abusing its dominant market position – about 90 percent of European search traffic goes through Google. For example, Google would favor its own services in search results. Google has come up with three settlement proposals, but they have all been rejected. For example, Google proposed to give more attention to competing services and to clearly mark its own services in the search results.

Should Google and the European Commission still reach an agreement, then all problems for Google are not over: earlier this month Almúnia said the Commission would probably open an investigation into Android. Google allegedly abused Android’s dominant market position.