In a major ruling that bolsters the EU’s efforts to clamp down on the world’s largest technology companies, Google lost an appeal on Wednesday to overturn a landmark anti-trust ruling by European regulators against the Internet giant.

The decision by the Luxembourg-based General Court related to a 2017 decision by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, to fine Google $2.8 billion for giving preferential treatment to its own price-comparison shopping service over rival services.

The penalty was the first of three issued by Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s top antitrust enforcer, against Google.

And with the other cases also being appealed — and additional European investigations underway against Amazon, Apple and Facebook — the case has been watched as a signal of the court’s view of the commission’s aggressive use of antitrust law against the American tech giants.

Google can appeal the decision to the EU’s highest court.

Amid increasing support for regulating large tech platforms in the US and EU, courts will play a central role in determining just how far governments will be able to go when intervening in the digital economy.

In Europe, the courts have sometimes ruled against regulators. Last year, the General Court ruled against an order to require Apple to pay 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes. Amazon also successfully appealed another order to repay taxes.

On Wednesday, the court sided with regulators who in 2017 said Google used its dominance as a search engine to unfairly help its own Internet shopping service over those of smaller rivals. “By favouring its own comparison shopping service on its general results pages through more favourable display and positioning, while relegating the results from competing comparison services in those pages by means of ranking algorithms, Google departed from competition on the merits,” the court said.

New York Times News Service