A German court ruled that Google must pay 572 million euros for violating antitrust rules in the price comparison sector.

A German court has ruled that Google abused its dominant market position in the price comparison sector, ruling that the company must pay a total of 572 million euros ($665.6 million) in damages to two German price comparison companies, according to a German court. a report By Reuters.

The report said that Google must pay price comparison platform Idealo about 465 million euros (about 540 million dollars) in damages, and 107 million euros (about 124 million dollars) to Producto, another price comparison tool.

Idealo has demanded €3.3 billion in damages from Google, arguing that its lawsuit was a direct response to the European Court of Justice’s decision. The ruling in 2024 found that the search giant had subjective preference for its shopping comparison serviceIt violated competition rules and was fined $2.7 billion.

Perfect He said On Friday it intends to continue its case against Google and demand the full damages for which it sued.

“We welcome Google’s court accountability,” Albrecht von Sonntag, co-founder and CEO of Idealo, said in a statement. “But the consequences of self-bias go far beyond the amount awarded. We will continue to fight — because market abuse must have consequences and a profitable business model must not become worthwhile despite fines and compensation payments.”

Google said it intends to appeal both rulings. “The changes we made in 2017 are working well, without any intervention from the European Commission,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The number of price comparison sites in Europe using the Therapy Shopping module has doubled from seven then to 1,550 sites today.”

The company added that it offers competing comparison shopping services the same opportunity as Google Shopping to display ads, and said that Google Shopping operates as if it were a separate business, participating in auctions like everyone else.

This ruling comes on the heels of the European Union investigation About how Google’s spam policy affects publisher search rankings. The company was recently Fined 2.95 billion euros (just under $3.5 billion) by the European Union for allegedly violating EU antitrust rules by favoring its own advertising services.

Note: This story has been updated to add comment from Google.