Google was fined in 2017 for how it favored its own shopping search results over rival services. The fine was the first for the company in a slew of EU antitrust investigations, including a probe into advertising technology where the European Commission is weighing a break-up of the company’s businesses.
Google is still fighting two other EU penalties, including a record €4.3 billion antitrust fine for its Google Android operating system.
The General Court backed the EU’s finding against Google’s Shopping platform last year with strong language on Google’s self-preferencing of its services.
Google is “disappointed” with the court ruling, said spokesman Rory O’Donoghue. He said the company made changes in 2017 to comply with the Commission’s decision that have generated “billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services.”
Rival services have previously complained that the Commission failed to extract meaningful changes from Google.
The Commission has since gained a powerful new tool to crack down on digital giants, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which forbids tech giants from favoring their own products and services over competitors on their own platforms.