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The
European Commission fined Google 2.4 billion euros ($2.33
billion) five years ago and told the firm to stop favouring its
shopping service.
The company subsequently said it would treat its own shopping
service the same as competitors when they bid in an auction for
adverts in the shopping box that appears at the top of a search
page.
But in a letter to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, the 43
companies - which include British firm Kelkoo, France's LeGuide
Group, Sweden's PriceRunner and Germany's idealo - said the
proposal was legally insufficient and had not led to them
benefitting from the advert auctions.
"The Commission needs to re-open space on general search results
pages for the most relevant providers, by removing Google's
Shopping Units that allow no competition but lead to higher
prices and less choice for consumers and an unfair transfer of
profit margins from merchants and competing CSSs to Google," the
companies said in the letter seen by Reuters.
CSSs refer to Comparison Shopping Services.
They said Google's mechanism breaches the Digital Markets Act
(DMA), Vestager's new rules aimed at reining in the power of
tech giants, which will apply in May next year.
"Google's prominent embedding of Shopping Units is a prima facie
infringement of the DMA's ban on self-preferencing," they said.
"Considering the unambiguous new legal framework, it is now time
to walk the talk. The most paramount case at the heart of the
calls for the DMA needs to be brought to an effective end," the
companies, from 20 European countries, said.
($1 = 1.0289 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Helen Popper)
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