Search Engine Gaint Google faces a record anti trust fine of around $3.4 Billion (US$3.4 Billion) from the European Commission in the coming weeks, according to The Sunday Telegraph reports.
The European Commission has filed anti-trust charges against Google last year for violating antitrust laws After 7-years of the investigation. They accused the search engine giant Google that it had abused its dominance in search by unfairly promoting its own shopping service at the top of its search results at the expense of rival products.
The Sunday Telegraph also reported that the European Commission is currently preparing a fine of about 3 Billion Euros ($3.4 billion), which is almost three times the amount (1.06 Billion Euro) imposed on chip maker Intel in 2009 over violating antitrust law.
According to the sources, the European Union officials are planning to announce the fine as early as next month, but the exact figure of the fine has yet to be finalized. The Commission can fine firms maximum penalty of up to 10 percent of their annual sales, which in Google’s case possibly is sanction of more than 6 billion euros. Aside from penalty, Google will also be banned from manipulating its search results in the region so that it does not carry on to promote its inhouse products.
Google has also been accused of abusing its dominant position in the mobile phone industry with Android by pre-installing its in house apps like, Chrome, Google Search, Gmail, YouTube as default apps, making it hurdles for other tech companies to compete in market.