A Swedish price comparison website is suing Google for 2.1 billion euros over allegations that it manipulated search results in favor of its own competing shopping service, reported Reuters.
PriceRunner said Monday that it plans to take Google to court in Stockholm. It’s seeking compensation for damages in relation to a 2017 ruling from the European Commission that Google breached antitrust laws by giving preference to its own shopping comparison product, Google Shopping, through its popular search engine.
After a seven-year investigation into the practices, the EU executive body dealt Google a historic $2.7 billion fine. Google appealed the penalty, but in November 2021, the decision was upheld by the EU’s General Court. The verdict can still be appealed and taken to the EU’s highest court.
Related: EU: Google files appeal over €2.4b fine
PriceRunner CEO Mikael Lindahl said the company launched its lawsuit following “extensive and thorough preparations.”
“We are of course seeking compensation for the damage Google has caused us during many years, but are also seeing this lawsuit as a fight for consumers who have suffered tremendously from Google’s infringement of the competition law for the past fourteen years and still today,” Lindahl said in a statement.
“This is also a matter of survival for many European entrepreneurial companies and job opportunities within tech.”
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