Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Dominating EU Search Engine Market Despite $10 Billion Antitrust Fine

For almost a decade, the European Union has been pursuing Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) regarding antitrust charges. The EU fined the search engine giant $10 billion for employing anti-competitive strategies to abuse its market dominance.

Google still dominating the EU market despite antitrust fines

Unfortunately two years down the line since the ruling there has been little competition against Google in the EU bloc. This is mainly because the bloc left it to the search engine giant to fix the problems. Some of the fixes that Google was to address included charging some fee to competing search engines to appear in the selection menu of Android phones.

The move sparked massive protests from the competitors. They argued that they shouldn’t pay Google to fix its anti-competitive practices. DuckSuckGo general counsel, Megan Gray said that it is just crazy that bad actors have to decide their medicine.

Recently the US Department of Justice files an antitrust case against Google and US attorneys will be keen on the European outcome. Google still dominates over 90% of the search engine market in the EU just as it did a decade ago when the EU antitrust probes began. Rivals in the online shopping market have laid complaints that the playing ground is still skewed in Google’s favour.

US Justice Department could do what the EU failed to do, break up Google.

According to some veterans in the EU probe, the results show how challenging it is to restore competition in a market that has already tilted towards one giant. There is also the belief that the European Commission was held back by the fact that Europe doesn’t have the political stand of imposing stricter measures like a breakup of a US company.

Clifford Chance antitrust attorney Thomas Vinje opines that because of politics the European Commission cannot break up a US company. However, the US Justice Department has indicated that it could impose stricter measures if the government wins the lawsuit. Some of the measures that it could impose its divesture of part of the company’s business.