Top EU court crushes Google appeal against $2.65B Shopping antitrust ruling

The European Union's Court of Justice (ECJ) has dismissed Google's appeal of a €2.4 billion ($2.65 billion) 2017 antitrust ruling, finding it had abused its dominance in favor of its own Google Shopping service, diverting traffic that would otherwise have gone to rival comparison services.

The 2017 decision at the time was the culmination of a years-long antitrust investigation that began in 2010.

Alphabet already attempted, and failed, to get the 2017 decision overturned on appeal in 2021, when it claimed before the EU General Court that its treatment of searches on Google's shopping comparison service wasn't unfair. At the time it argued the consequences of the practice to the rivals were not so dire, pointing to differences in search traffic, which it claimed were not "substantial." But the General Court wasn't buying this, stating: "Those arguments take account only of the impact ...