The European Commission plans on charging Google for abusing its power in the delivery of its online searches, which favors the company’s services over other rival websites, the New York Times reports. After more than five years of intense scrutiny by the European Union, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager reached a decision in agreement with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. This is not the first time European regulators have chased American tech giants. A decade ago, Microsoft racked up a total of $3.4 billion in fines over antitrust issues.
This decision will pose serious regulatory hurdles for the search giant. In some European countries, Google places its own web services in query results as opposed to sharing the space with its rivals. Reportedly, Google might be slapped with a huge fine and will be forced to restructure its business practices to allow other companies, such as Yelp to display their results in search queries.
