The European Commission is reportedly set to charge Google with violating European Union rules.
The antitrust regulator determined that changes the company made to its search results did not address the concerns of the commission and Google’s rivals, Reuters reported Friday (Feb. 21), citing unnamed sources.
The upcoming charges allege that Google violated the EU’s Digital Markets Act by having its search results favor its vertical search engines — Google Shopping, Google Flights and Google Hotels — and discriminate against third-party services, according to the report.
The European Commission launched this investigation in March, per the report.
While Google has made several changes to its search result formats in recent months to address complaints from competitors, most of those competitors have said the company’s proposals do not comply with the Digital Markets Act, the report said.
The European Commission is likely to file the charges in the coming months, according to the report.
If it finds that Google violated the Digital Markets Act, the regulator could fine the company as much as 10% of its global annual revenue, per the report.
When the European Commission announced in March that it began proceedings against Google’s parent company, Alphabet, it said it aimed to determine whether Google search results preferred its own vertical search services over those of rivals.
“The commission is concerned that Alphabet’s measures implemented to comply with the DMA may not ensure that third-party services featuring on Google’s search results page are treated in a fair and non-discriminatory manner in comparison with Alphabet’s own services, as required by Article 6(5) of the DMA,” the regulator said in a March 24 press release.
In November, Google said it planned to revise how it displays search results in Europe, responding to concerns raised by small competitors and scrutiny from regulators.
Google’s legal director, Oliver Bethell, detailed the proposals in a Nov. 26 blog post. The changes included expanding search result units to equally highlight comparison sites and supplier websites, new formats allowing rivals to display prices and images, and additional ad units designed specifically for comparison platforms.
“We think the latest proposal is the right way to balance the difficult trade-offs that the DMA involves,” Bethell wrote.