Google today made a last-ditch effort at Europe’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), to try to overturn the $2.6 billion Google Shopping antitrust case. As early as June 2017, the European Union announced a fine of 2.42 billion euros (approximately US$2.6 billion) on Google Shopping. The reason is that Google favors its own service, Google Shopping, and downgrades its competitors' services.
Google appealed to the EU's intermediate court, the General Court, against the EU's ruling. In November 2021, the General Court rejected Google’s appeal. Google subsequently appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest court.
In today's hearing at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Google lawyer Thomas Graf said that the European Commission failed to prove that Google's different treatment of competitors was an abuse, and that "different treatment" itself was not anti-competitive behavior.
Graf said: "Usually, if there is competition between companies, they will definitely not treat their competitors the same as they treat themselves. On the contrary, they will treat them differently. For a company, the meaning of competition is to differentiate itself from competitors. Rather than aligning with competitors, everyone is the same."
Graf also said: "Defining every different treatment, especially the different treatment of first-party and third-party companies, as abuse is unreasonable and will undermine competition and weaken the ability to innovate."
The European Commission lawyer Fernando Castillo de la Torre refuted Google's argument, saying that Google used its algorithm to unfairly favor its own shopping service Google Shopping, violating EU antitrust laws.
"Google can use its algorithm to reduce the visibility of results that are less relevant to user queries," Fernando said. "But they do not have the right to use their dominance in search to promote the results of their own services while lowering the rankings of their competitors."
The EU Court of Justice will make a final ruling on the case in the coming months.
In addition to the Google Shopping service, Google's other two services, Google Android and Google AdSense advertising services, have also been subject to EU antitrust fines, and Google has also appealed.
In these three antitrust cases, Google Shopping was fined 2.42 billion euros, Google AdSense advertising service was fined 1.49 billion euros, and Google Android was fined 4.34 billion euros.