The couple who own the firm Foundem accused the search giant of search manipulation and managed to prove their claims, winning a legal battle worth billions. As a result of the ordeal, Google must now pay a staggering 2.4 billion Euro fine to the company which says it destroyed their price comparison firm.
The news of Google being proven guilty of its search practices is certainly a major win for many small-scale organizations in the digital world.
The founders of Foundem claim they first began their website in June of 2006 and during its launch, the spam filters on Google hit the page. This pushed it deep down the list for search results which meant it couldn’t attain its main traffic source.
As per the owner Shivaun Raff, Google literally made the company vanish from the web. Therefore, such search penalties weren’t removed despite the organization getting the title of the UK’s best price comparison firm on Channel 5’s leading TV show.
Hence, what began as a small complaint soon took the shape of a mega lawsuit. The battle lasted two years when Google refused to answer to the firm’s appeals and that’s when the case was handed over to regulators for assessment.
The complaint caused an investigation by the EC to arise in 2010 that showed similar issues with more than 20 different shopping services that compared pricing such as Yelp and Kelkoo.
While this investigation ended up completed in the year 2017 with the Commission ruling how Google illegally marketed the service and demoted archrivals, it’s now that we’re seeing a fine directed in the Google’s direction.
The legal battle lasted seven long years and it certainly highlights the mega challenges that small firms face in today’s day and age where Google’s illegal search practices are concerned. Despite having so much clear evidence, the couple is happy that the result arose after a long struggle.
Google shared its insights on the matter with a statement published by its spokesperson. The company says the changes they made worked successfully for nearly seven years. It generated billions in terms of clicks for some of the top shopping services offering comparison pricing.
While it has been successful in proving its claims, it might be too late to make a difference for the startup that shut down in 2016. The EC rolled out another investigation into the firm’s current practices under the DMA.
Such a decision confirms how Google’s search rankings could be subjected to regulations and legal battles in the future. This case has already impacted new regulations in the Digital Marketplace such as the DMA. As far as Foundem is concerned, its chapter might have been closed years ago but the legal victory remains.
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World
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