Google's troubles with the European Union do not seem to go away as the company has now been served with their third anti-trust charge by the EU. The charge states that company has been involved in sabotaging the businesses of rivals in the online advertising space by blocking them and if the charges are upheld then the company might have to pay a huge fine to the relevant authorities. However, according to reports, this whole thing might turn quite ugly quite quickly. As a Reuters report states, "The European Commission on Thursday also reinforced an existing charge against the world's most popular internet search engine that its search results favor Google's own shopping service over those of rivals."
Margrethe Vestagertold, the European Competition Commissioner spoke at a press conference on the matter and stated, "Google has come up with many innovative products that have made a difference to our lives. But that doesn't give Google the right to deny other companies the chance to compete and innovate," She added, "We have also raised concerns that Google has hindered competition by limiting the ability of its competitors to place search adverts on third-party websites, which stifles consumer choice and innovation,"
The Reuters report further stated, "The Commission said it had sent two charge sheets known as "statements of objections" to Google. The first accuses Google of having abused its 80 percent market share in the placement of search advertising on third party websites." It went on to add, "The second accusation, which built on a charge sheet sent to Google in April last year, rejected the company's claim that the watchdog had failed to take into account competition from online retailers Amazon and eBay. Google has 10 weeks to respond to the Aden's charge and eight weeks to the shopping service case. The company could face fines up to 10 percent of its global turnover for each case if found guilty of breaching the bloc's antitrust rules."
