Google Responds to European Union Antitrust Charges

Google rebuffed the European Union’s demand that it change the way it ranks online comparison-shopping services in its search results, setting up a potentially drawn-out legal battle between the search company and a regulator empowered to levy billions of euros in fines. In a formal response to antitrust charges the EU filed spring 2015 against the California company, Google said it has argued the bloc’s antitrust regulators erred in their analysis of the fast-changing online-shopping business, misconstrued Google’s impact on rival shopping-comparison services, and failed to properly back up their legal claims.

In particular, the company argues that the EU’s charges -- detailed in a document called a Statement of Objections, or SO -- fail to take into account the fast growth of companies like Amazon.com and eBay. Google executives have said these firms pose a new competitive threat, which undermines the case that Google has harmed comparison-shopping companies like Nextag and LeGuide. Google also argues that asking it to make changes to the way it ranks comparison-shopping sites would require legal justifications the EU doesn’t have.