EU Gives Google More Time To Respond To Antitrust Charges – Pushes Deadline To August 17

The EU has agreed to give Google more time to respond to antitrust charges, pushing the deadline from from July 7 to August 17, 2015.

According to a report on Reuters, Google spokesman Al Verney said the EU granted Google’s request for an extension to review court documents.

[blockquote cite = “Google Spokesperson Al Verney”]We have asked the European Commission for additional time to review the documents they’ve provided us. The Commission has extended our response deadline to Aug. 17.[/blockquote]

Antitrust charges were brought against Google by the EU in April, accusing the company of unfair practices around its comparison shopping services, as well as an investigation into market abuse by Google’s Android operating system.

Earlier this month, the EU said Google could face substantial fines, large enough to “ensure deterrence” of further antitrust abuses. The Reuters report says Google’s penalty will be based on Google’s European Adwords revenue, comparison shopping gross turnover earned in Europe, and its gross revenue from European search queries.

Since charges were filed, Getty Images was added to the EU’s case as an interested third party, claiming Google was guilty of building its own image search vertical using Getty-owned content.

Yesterday, Yelp – one of the companies listed as a complainant in the case – sponsored a study claiming Google is deliberately degrading its local search results by promoting its own content over results ranked by relevancy.