The antitrust authorities of the European Union are seeking “to extract” concessions from Google Inc. after they were planning to settle a four-year antitrust probe over the U.S.-based companys search practices in Europe. This once again opens the possibility that Google may be subject to fines amounting to up to $6 billion.
“Some complainants have introduced new arguments, new data, new considerations,” the EU antitrust commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in an interview for Bloomberg TV. “We now need to analyze this and see if we can find solutions, Google can find solutions, to some of these concerns that we find justified.”
According to him, the move comes as a response to “very, very negative” feedback from companies, including Microsoft Corp. and Expedia Inc. to a proposed settlement between Google and the European Union, which was announced by the company in February this year.
This is the European Commissions highest-profile antitrust case since the one taken against Microsoft in the 1990s. The unprecedented third rejection of a tentative peace settlement will shake the commissions credibility, and especially Mr. Almunias, who has fiercely defended the planned settlement, insisting that Googles commitments were enough to relieve his agencys concerns.
Over the last few months additional complaints against Google have been made by Deutsche Telekom AG and French and German publishers. The company, however, is still working in cooperation with the regulatory authorities of the European Union, as explained by a spokesman of the worlds largest search engine.
In July 2014 a person close to the negotiations revealed that the European Union may ask Google to change the way data from competing services are displayed along with its search results. There may be other changes, too, including some associated with YouTube content.
Google Inc. rose by 0.64% on Monday to close at $601.63 per share, marking a one-year change of +36.67%. The company is valued at $402.91 billion. According to CNN Money, the 43 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Google Inc. have a median target of $670.00, with a high estimate of $750.00 and a low estimate of $570.00. The median estimate represents a +11.36% increase from the last price of $601.63.
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