In short: Google revised its proposal to comply with the European Commission’s antitrust ruling that saw it hit with a historic $2.7 billion fine last year, the European Union’s competition watchdog said earlier this week, without elaborating on the matter. The Mountain View, California-based tech giant may not have significantly changed its new report compared to the last one given how the EC already said it’s satisfied with its compliance efforts, though it’s presently unclear how long will the agency take to review the new set of suggestions meant to guarantee Google won’t be abusing the dominance of its Internet Search engine in order to promote its shopping price comparison tool at the expense of its rivals.
Background: Google is presently in the process of appealing the fine but has to send periodic compliance reports to the EC in the meantime. Since it received the fine in the summer of 2017, it was hit with another similar penalty as the EU’s antitrust regulator ruled the firm also abused the dominance of its Android operating system in order to force manufacturers to pre-install many of its apps, directly hurting third-party developers in doing so. The transgression received a $5.04 billion fine, the largest ever issued for anti-competitive behavior on the Old Continent, with Google presently appealing that penalty as well. The EC is presently also investigating Alphabet’s subsidiary for potentially abusing the dominance of its online advertising platform and is likely to issue it with a third fine in the coming months.
Impact: Google’s appeals are expected to take years to be resolved and while the company won’t be paying any fines before that happens, if at all, its regular compliance reports are meant to serve as public reminders of its past behavior the EU deemed illegal. Until then, the company remains adamant all of its anti-competitive activities were meant to improve its products and weren’t aimed at crippling its rivals.