The European Union spent ten years filing antitrust lawsuits against Google and eventually fined the company nearly $10 billion because the company used illegal means to abuse its dominant position in the market. However, antitrust lawyers and Google competitors said that two years after the EU made the above-mentioned major ruling, the situation has hardly changed, and Google still dominates the European search engine market.

There is still a lack of competition in the European search engine market, partly because the European Union largely leaves the responsibility for solving the problem to Google. Google’s approach includes charging competitors who want to appear on the Android phone’s selection menu, a move that has attracted protests from competitors. They questioned: Why pay Google to help it correct anti-competitive behavior?

As the U.S. Department of Justice announced in October an antitrust lawsuit against Google, government attorneys are carefully reviewing the findings of the European investigation. Data from the analysis company StatCounter shows that Google continues to dominate the European search engine market, occupying more than 90% of the market, which is almost the same as before being investigated by the European Union in 2010. At the same time, competitors engaged in online shopping business complained that the competitive environment is still favorable for Google.

Many veterans who have participated in the EU’s antitrust war said that this result shows that it is quite difficult to restore competition in a market already controlled by technology giants. They also stated that the European Union is at a disadvantage in terms of political status and cannot take stricter measures against a US company, such as a spin-off.

Source: NetEase Technology Report, translated by Google Translate