Price and products comparisons company, PriceRunner announced on Monday that it had sued Google for about €2.1 billion (2.4 billion US dollars) at a court in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital. According to the company, Google allegedly manipulated search engine results in favor of its own comparison shopping services.
PriceRunner announced that the litigation intends to ensure Google pays damages for profits the company lost in the UK since 2008. Also, it demanded potential profits lost based on the said allegation in Sweden and Denmark since 2013.
An independent product and price comparison service company, PriceRunner serves over 18.2 million monthly users across all its commercial outlets. Users can access over 2 million products from 5,900 shops for product comparisons, guides, and tests. Last November, Google lost the appeal to overturn a €2.42-billion-fine it got in 2017 for favoring itself against smaller competitors in Europe.
Concerning the search engine’s corporate ethics, PriceRunner’s CEO, Mikael Lindahl, emphasized that Google hasn’t repented to its unethical ways.
Also, in November, the ownership of PriceRunner changed hands when Creades, a Swedish investment company, sold its 12% share of PriceRunner to Klarna for 123.36 US dollars (1.06 billion Swedish crowns). Currently, the company operates in four European countries, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
Google has yet to publicly issue an official response to this allegation at the reporting time.
