Consumers welcome EU Court of Justice landmark ruling on Google Shopping antitrust case

BEUC, representing consumer groups in 31 European countries, welcomes the EU Court of Justice September 10 ruling in the Google Shopping case. The Court ruling confirmed that Google broke EU antitrust rules because it abused its market dominance as a search engine by unfairly promoting its own comparison shopping service.

Specifically, the Court of Justice rejected the appeal lodged by Google and its parent company Alphabet against the EU General Court’s November 2021 ruling that upheld the European Commission’s June 2017 Google Shopping decision.

BEUC Director General Agustín Reyna commented: “Today’s Court of Justice ruling is crucially important for Europe’s consumers. The Court has confirmed that Google cannot unfairly deny European consumers access to full and unbiased online information about where to get the best deals.  Google did so by abusing its dominance in the search engine market to illegally deny rival comparison shopping services the possibility to compete fairly.

“Google harmed millions of European consumers by ensuring that rival comparison shopping services were virtually invisible. Google’s illegal practices prevented consumers from accessing potentially cheaper prices and useful product information from rival comparison shopping services on all sorts of products, from clothes to washing machines.

“The Court ruling is a confirmation that EU competition law remains highly relevant in digital markets. Competition law must continue to strictly apply to Big Tech’s online exploitation of consumer behaviour.”

Background

• The European Commission June 2017 decision found that Google had broken EU antitrust rules by abusing its dominant market position as a search engine, in particular by illegally promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results and demoting those of competitors.

• BEUC was a complainant against Google during the administrative proceedings and intervened before the General Court in support of the Commission decision (case T-612/17).
  BEUC was a party in the case before the Court of Justice in support of the General Court’s 2021 ruling, including at the hearing on 19 September 2023

• The General Court, in its September 2022 ruling on the Google Android case, explicitly recognised the legitimacy of BEUC’s position as a representative of users of general search services.