Google Isn't Fixing Its Real Shopping Problem

As Google appeals the European Commission's antitrust ruling that cost the search giant 2.42 billion euros ($2.82 billion) and pretends to provide a remedy, its biggest competitor in shopping search, Amazon, is offering better service to customers. Google needs to shift gears -- and fast -- by focusing on improving its product, not the legal confrontation.

The European Union has published a summary of Google's appeal against the antitrust ruling, which punished it for prioritizing its own shopping comparison engine, Google Shopping, over outside competitors. The summary makes it clear that Google is rehashing old arguments repeatedly made during its seven-year investigation. The company aims to prove to the EU's General Court that it put product search ads in a special box above the "organic" search results to improve the customer experience, not to drive traffic to Google Shopping. It argues that the European Commission hasn't proved that the practice increased traffic to Google Shopping or decreased it to other comparison sites, though the commission cited traffic data as evidence in the ruling. And it claims that competitors shouldn't be entitled to access Google product improvements.