On September 10, 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) confirmed a record fine of 2.4 billion euros imposed on Google for abuse of a dominant position.
This penalty was initially decided by the European Commission in 2017 and then validated by the General Court of the European Union in 2021 and concerns the product comparison practices of its Alphabet subsidiary.
Google was accused of having favored its own price comparison service to the detriment of those of its competitors in thirteen European countries.
For almost ten years, Google had systematically promoted its product comparison service on its results pages, by using visually attractive inserts (“boxes”) prominently located below the search bar.
These “boxes” benefited from enriched display functionalities, making it easier for users to access Google Shopping results, to the detriment of competing comparators which were themselves relegated to simple, less visible hypertext links subject to Google’s general ranking algorithm.
This algorithm could push the results of third-party comparators far down the search pages while Google’s products escaped this demotion, thus ensuring priority visibility for Internet users.
In her conclusions of January 11, 2024, the Advocate General of the CJEU argued that this “self-favoring” behavior constituted “an autonomous form of abuse” with a significant anti-competitive impact on the online price comparison market. She considered that these practices ran counter to fair competition.
Following the verdict, Google said it had modified its practices back in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s rulings. According to Google, these adjustments have generated billions of clicks for more than 800 external price comparison services, which it says shows the success of its new model.
 |
Anne Levy
Partner, Trademark & Design Attorney and European Counsel with the EUIPO
|
