EU files lawsuit against Google for abusing search dominance

The king of search engines, Google, has been charged with violating antitrust laws by the European Union. The EU antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, announced this past Wednesday the lawsuit against Google and that the dominant search engine will be, “…charged for suppressing market competition [in the European economic area], harming European customers in the process.”

In other words, the European Union believes Google has been favoring its own shopping services over competitors in web search results and that the most relevant links are not always being listed first in the search engine’s rankings. The EU will also be focusing on whether or not Google abused its Android mobile operating system to thwart the development of rival software and products. The European Union announced that the accusations against Google were a result of a five-year investigation into whether Google violated its antitrust laws.

What does this latest Google lawsuit entail and what could it mean for users? If Google is found guilty of these charges:

Google could face a fine as large as $6.4 billion, which is the equivalent to about 10% of Google’s most recent annual sales

Google would be forced to restructure its business model, a consequence that would shake-up the entire tech world

Google may also have to make substantial modifications to its algorithms, which would impact how SEO is crafted for websites

When Google first launched in 1998, the company estimated that its users were making about 500,000 searches per day. As of 2015, the company concluded that more than 2 million searches per second were conducted by users. Aside from leading the world in searches, over the years Google has expanded into other platforms. The most popular source of instant video streaming, YouTube, was bought by Google back in 2006. Google also reached into GPS territory with Google Maps, designed to provide detailed routes with satellite images for accuracy.With the addition of Google Shopping only a few years ago, the company continued to rapidly branch out into all forms of media.

The search engine champion continued to succeed in 2014 when over 1 billion Android phones were purchased by consumers, bringing the dominance of Google’s operating system to the smartphones of users everywhere. In 2015, Google was ranked as the top mobile app publisher for smartphones worldwide and according to Business Insider, Google has acquired more than one company every week since 2010. With mind blowing statistics like these, it’s no wonder Google is dominating. Google now has 10 weeks to make a formal response to the bold allegations of the European Union.

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http://deadline.com/2015/04/google-european-union-anti-trust-competition-probe-1201410317/

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/15/3647306/google-faces-antitrust-lawsuit-influencing-users-shop/

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4780_en.htm

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-mind-blowing-facts-about-google-2013-5?op=1

http://qz.com/253527/these-are-the-25-most-popular-mobile-apps-in-america/

http://www.businessinsider.in/16-crazy-interesting-facts-about-Google-you-probably-didnt-know/In-1998-the-year-Google-launched-users-were-making-about-500000-searches-per-day-Now-there-are-more-than-2-million-Google-searches-per-second-/slideshow/46553110.cms

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/20/ftc-report-google-search-bias/