According to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, the European Union is going to file antitrust charges against Google in the next few weeks.
The EU has been investigating Google for several years now, but now the region’s top antitrust authority, the European Commission, has been asking companies who filed confidential complaints against Google for permission to publish those complaints.
The Commission could end up fining Google up to 10 percent of its annual revenues, which would be more than $6 billion based on last year’s revenue.
Recently, complaints against Google entered the spotlight again after the WSJ found a previously secret document from the US Federal Trade Commission which explained how Google was favoring its own sites in search results. Staffers at the FTC recommended suing Google for antitrust, but Google made some changes to its search practices and the FTC dropped the investigation without suing in 2012.
Last November, the European parliament passed a non-binding resolution suggesting that Google should be forced to separate its search business from its other businesses. That resolution actually never mentioned Google by name, but it was clear that it was referencing the US search giant.
The EU has been investigating Google for several years now, but now the region’s top antitrust authority, the European Commission, has been asking companies who filed confidential complaints against Google for permission to publish those complaints.
The Commission could end up fining Google up to 10 percent of its annual revenues, which would be more than $6 billion based on last year’s revenue.
Recently, complaints against Google entered the spotlight again after the WSJ found a previously secret document from the US Federal Trade Commission which explained how Google was favoring its own sites in search results. Staffers at the FTC recommended suing Google for antitrust, but Google made some changes to its search practices and the FTC dropped the investigation without suing in 2012.
Last November, the European parliament passed a non-binding resolution suggesting that Google should be forced to separate its search business from its other businesses. That resolution actually never mentioned Google by name, but it was clear that it was referencing the US search giant.
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