The Story:
A new Reuters report suggests that Google’s regulatory troubles in the EU are far from over. The report says that Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition who is wielding the EU ax against the tech giants of Silicon Valley, said that there would be more cases against Google, whose parent company is Alphabet, Inc.
Important Because:
The penalty of more than $2.7 billion against Google for unfairly promoting its own shopping services in favor of rival content providers and advertisers has been appealed against at the Luxemborg EU court.
The move could see the case drag on for several years before any resolution is reached.
Additional cases will probably go the same way, but in the meantime it will put tremendous pressure on Google to do some serious housekeeping to make sure it is in full compliance with every clause of every mandate put forward by the European Commission.
That alone could put a not-insignificant drain on its resources, similar to what Facebook is currently facing in the United States – having to increase its manpower by a staggering amount to deal with its Congressional woes.
This Happened:
Commissioner Vestager is being tough on Silicon Valley companies, to say the least. It was under her leadership and directive that Apple faced $14.5 billion in back taxes in Ireland.
The Commissioner, who slapped the record-breaking back taxes bill on Apple in August of last year, said that she wanted to ensure that she wanted the Cupertino giant to toe the line on bloc policy on unfair state aid to companies.
In that regard, she said at the recent Web Summit in Lisbon earlier this month:
“I have been asking for an update on the arrangement made by Apple, the recent way they have been organized, in order to get the feeling whether or not this is in accordance with our European rules but that remains to be seen.”
There’s no doubt Commissioner Vestager will, in fact, see what remains to be seen. Whether that’s with Apple or Alphabet.
The new revelation about Google came while the Commissioner was on a trip to Beijing this Wednesday.
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