EU: Google can’t hide behind Alphabet says Vestager

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she spoke about the lengthy, multiple probes into Google’s business practices, and said that each investigation was at a different stage, requiring different considerations.

Indeed, only the shopping case has so far proceeded to a statement of objections being slapped on Google, whose response to the suspected violations is currently being pored over by the antitrust wing of the European Commission.

“The shopping case may have similarities when we eventually look at maps and travel and a number of other related services, because the complaints sort of tell the same story,” Vestager told the newspaper. “But there is no such thing as you have done one, you’ve done them all. You can’t do that.”

Vestager added that other areas of investigation, such as the Android case and web-scraping allegations, continued to be a “high priority” for Brussels’ officials.

“[W]hat they have in common is that the name Google appears in each one, but apart from that they are very different. And therefore I do not think of it as one Google case but literally as different investigations and different cases,” she told the WSJ.

Full content: The Wall Street Journal

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