Google faces a 3 billion Euro antitrust fine

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By Larry Banks

Google is soon to face a record antitrust fine of 3 billion Euros ($3.4 billion) from the European Commission in the next few weeks, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph.

The EU has already accused Google of promoting its own services, such as its shopping services, in Internet searches at the expense of rivals, in a long-running case that has been ongoing since 2010.

People familiar with the matter told news agency Reuters in April that after three failed attempts at a compromise deal in the past six years, Google had no plans to settle the allegations unless the EU watchdog changed stance.

The Telegraph article cites sources ‘close to the situation’ as stating officials planned to announce the fine in June, but the bill had not yet been finalised.

Google is also set to be banned from manipulating search results to favour itself and harm its competition, the newspaper claimed.

The Commission is able to fine firms up to 10 percent of annual sales. This means in Google’s case, a possible maximum could be over 6 billion Euros. The biggest fine to date was a 1.1 billion-Euro fine given to chipmaker Intel in 2009.

SOURCE: Reuters.

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