Internet businesses hurt by what the European Commission has found to be unfair search engine practices are lining up to file private lawsuits against Google. Some of the legal action was put on hold pending the EU decision which saw Google handed a record 2.4 billion euro fine.
Chief executive of Kelkoo, Richard Stables, as quoted by the Financial Times, said that Google’s practices caused his company to lose “10 years of development and growth,” with the revenues from search engine-referred visitors falling from US$12 million to just US$200,000.
“The amount of damages that is going to come against Google is going to be much, much higher than what the EU Commission fined them today,” Stables said.
A three-paragraph blog post from Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker defended Google in response to the EU decision, emphasizing improved user experience from their current search engine practices.