Europe?s record offers cautions for a U.S. battle with Google

Updated 06/02/2019 08:13 PM EDTBRUSSELS — The U.S. Justice Department's potential antitrust investigation of Google has brought cheers from Silicon Valley’s critics on both sides of the Atlantic — but European regulators' years of battling the search giant show how hard it would be to change the company's behavior.European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager has exacted significant penalties from Google over the past three years, levying a combined $9.2 billion in fines from the company for unfairly favoring some of its search, mobile software and online advertising services over those of rivals. “But case law is more demanding for the plaintiff to bring evidence of consumer harm compared to in Europe.”Some tech industry critics in the U.S. also remain skeptical that the Justice Department is willing to take on an aggressive antitrust fight, despite the Trump administration’s attempted court battle to prevent the merger between AT&T and Time Warner.“Holding dominant platforms accountable for anti-competitive conduct is imperative, but I don’t have a lot of faith that President Trump’s Justice Department will stand up for working people against powerful corporations like Google and Facebook," said U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, in a statement Saturday. That included accusing Google of abusing its dominant position in the online search and advertising markets to push out rivals, tilt the table in favor of its own digital services, and force others to rely on Google’s products.In previous statements, Google has said that its digital services are widely used by consumers worldwide and helped to support a thriving digital economy of app developers.Some of Google’s rivals have credited Europe’s aggressive stance with giving Washington a model to follow, particularly the role played by Vestager, whose antitrust tenure in Brussels will soon end.“We wouldn’t be here without Vestager,” said Luther Lowe, vice president of public policy at Yelp, the online listing service that has been a vocal critic of Google’s online tactics in the U.S. and Europe, and whose antitrust case against the search giant is under review by officials in Brussels.“We now see a situation where European consumers are better protected than U.S. consumers," he added.