More than 40 European suppliers of Google’s shopping service urged EU antitrust regulators on Monday to use newly adopted technical rules to ensure Google parent Alphabet complies with a 2017 EU directive to allow more sellers on its search page to compete fairly, Reuters reported.
Five years ago, the European Commission fined Google 2.4 billion euros ($2.33 billion) and ordered it to stop supporting its shopping service. Google then said it would allow all sellers to compete fairly when rivals bid for ads in the shopping bins displayed at the top of search pages.
But in a letter to the EU’s antitrust chief, 43 companies – including UK firm Kelkoo, France’s LeGuide Group, Sweden’s PriceRunner and Germany’s Idealo – said the proposal was legally inadequate and did not benefit them from advertising competition. “The commission needs to reopen space on general search results pages for the most relevant vendors, remove Google’s shopping unit, and require that Google not allow this unit to compete, which would result in consumers being left to shop at higher prices and with fewer choices,” the companies said in the letter seen by Reuters.
They said Google’s mechanism violated the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which comes into effect next May. “Given the clear new legal framework, it is now time to walk the talk and effectively close this case,” the companies from 20 European countries said.
Post time: Oct-19-2022