Dive Brief:

• The European Union Wednesday formally accused Google of violating antitrust laws.
• Antitrust officials suspect that Google’s dominance in search engine marketing throughout Europe allows it to give preferential treatment to its own services, particularly shopping websites, inhibiting competition. 
• The EU previously asked companies that have filed complaints against Google to take their grievances public as part of its now five-year-long antitrust investigation.

Dive Insight:

Yelp is among the companies that has filed complaints against Google, likely asserting that Google favors its own review information over competitors’ reviews and mapping functions; German and French publishers have also filed complaints. If it files formal charges, the EU could seek a fine of up to 10% of Google’s most recent annual sales totals—about $6.5 billion—and restrict its operations in Europe.

The move is partially pertinent for online shopping websites, which depend on search for some of its sales. Google has its own shopping site called Google Shopping, which the EU has focused on in this investigation. If they find that Google has unfairly ranked searches in favor of this shopping site, its search may be forced to change, perhaps helping retailers both big and small compete. 

Google, for its part, defended its practices in a blog post Wednesday. 

"While Google may be the most-used search engine, people can now find and access information in numerous different ways — and allegations of harm, for consumers and competitors, have proved to be wide off the mark," the company said.