The EU antitrust authorities have disclosed that Google have to face a preliminary inquiry into allegations made by three European Internet companies. The three companies of U.K. who have taken Google to EU are the German subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation-Ciao.de, a U.K. price comparison site Foundem.co.uk and the legal search inquiries provider EJustice.fr. These companies have complained that Google have ranked them unfairly in the sites of Internet competitors.
According to them, it had intentionally demotes the search results for their websites in its rankings. The European Commission was investigating the issue following three companies complained to the regulator.
Now it has been apprehended that Google may face a huge penalty by the European Commission. Yesterday there was a report published in The Daily Telegraph revealing that the penalty can be as huge as 10% of Google’s annual revenues if Google will be found guilty of using 90% of its shares in the UK search market to dominate its competitors. The penalty can cost Google up to $2.4billion. Earlier the record anti-competition fine was €1.06billion from Intel in 2009.