Is Google too powerful now?

Google was recently slapped with a record-breaking €2.42bn fine for EU antitrust violations.

The 7-year long investigation concluded that Google has been abusing its dominance of the search engine market in building its online shopping service, and therefore, putting those of rivals in an unfavourable spot.

In the 2017/08/30  Washington Post article: “Google is coming after critics in academia and journalism. It’s time to stop them.”, professor Zephyr Teachout talks about an incident Google had with New America, a think tank financed by Google, of which an article praising the EU decision was published by a member of New America, and coincidentally, that member was dismissed shortly after that. The article argues that Google is now too big and powerful that it becomes a tyrant that controls its own version of “free speech”.

“Don’t be evil” has been the motto of Google’s corporate code of conduct since 2000. Yet, we are not too sure if that is still relevant when over 75% market share in searches is in its hands.