Technical News Office –Shivaun and Adam Raff, founders of UK-based price comparison site Foundum, have successfully won a 15-year legal battle against Google, after which the popular tech company will now have to pay a €2.4 billion fine euros (around Rs 21,000 crore). ). Foundum launched in 2006 and shortly after, the company experienced a decline in the visibility of important keywords such as “price comparison” and “shopping” in Google search results. This decline resulted in Google search penalties being imposed by automated spam filters, which significantly affected Foundum’s revenue by limiting its user reach.
The BCC report states that Raff initially thought this was an easy error to correct. However, despite several attempts to remove the penalty, Google’s position remained the same for two years, while other search engines ranked Foundum without any problems. In 2010, the couple filed a complaint with the European Commission, which launched an antitrust investigation and found Google guilty of favoring its own shopping service over its competitors. This resulted in a ruling in 2017 that fined Google for market abuse.
Google also appealed this decision, leading to an additional seven years of legal proceedings. In 2024, the European Court of Justice finalized the fine and upheld the European Commission’s decision, rejecting Google’s appeal. On this occasion, Shivun said in a statement to the BBC: “We really don’t like scoundrels.”
Google has since claimed that the penalty targeting practices ended in 2017 and that the changes subsequently led to billions of clicks to more than 800 comparison shopping services. Despite favorable results, Foundem was unable to sustain the losses and closed its doors in 2016. Raff is filing a civil suit for damages against Google, with a trial scheduled for 2026.
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