Google has called EU objections to its improved shopping results in searches as baseless. The European Commission had accused Google of using its dominant position to take business away from price comparison and price aggregating sites, based on complaints it had received from these sites. Google contends that the most dominant position is held by Amazon itself, which competes for traffic with price aggregation sites more than Google does.
The counter argument was that as Amazon pays these sites for listings, it should not be considered as a competition. Google provided data to show that a staggering majority of users start shopping online by checking the prices on Amazon, irrespective of whether or not they end up making a purchase from the site. Google came in a second place for users looking for prices, and only a fraction of users opted to check price comparison sites.
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Google also alleges that most of the shopping activity is conducted through native apps on smartphones. Google claims that it has improved its search results to deliver ads with pictures and prices, a process that helps Google, its partnered advertisers as well as the end users.
Google claims there is no relation between the evolution of its search engine, and the performance of price comparison sites.