Google, EU bring battle to court
Luxembourg: Google and the EU battled in court Wednesday as the search engine giant tried to persuade judges that it was unfairly accused of ill-treating rivals of its shopping service. The Silicon Valley juggernaut is appealing a 2.4 billion euro ($2.6 billion) fine from 2017 that was the first in a series of major penalties imposed by the European Commission, the EU's powerful anti-trust regulator.
The court case launches a new phase in the decade-long duel and is a major test of the combative tactics taken by the EU commission against big tech.
The next months will see Google appeal all three decisions that saw Brussels slap a total $9 billion in EU fines, with the giant's Android mobile operating system and ad service also caught out for illegal behaviour.
The tech giant has paid the fines and changed its behaviour, but the company on Wednesday strongly condemned the EU's verdict on shopping in the EU's General Court as ill-founded and unfair. - AFP