Google loses EU court appeal against 2.4 bn euro fine in antitrust case

Google lost its final legal challenge on Tuesday against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that came with a whopping fine.

The European Union's Court of Justice upheld a lower court's decision, dismissing the company's appeal against the 2.4 billion euro (USD 2.7 billion) penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's top antitrust enforcer.

The commission's original decision in 2017 accused the Silicon Valley giant of unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service to the detriment of competitors. It was one of three multibillion-euro fines that the commission imposed on Google in the previous decade as Brussels started ramping up its crackdown on the tech industry.

Google made changes to comply with the commission's decision requiring it to treat competitors equally. The company started holding auctions for shopping search listings