E.U. Fines Intel $1.5 Billion, Could Google Be Next?

By Ryan Singel

May 13, 2009

Intel got the Microsoft treatment on Wednesday from European Union regulators who slapped  the chip maker with a record $1.45 billion fine for unfairly undermining rival chip maker AMD with secret payments to computer makers to use its chips.

The decision isn’t good news for Google, which is facing increasing scrutiny from U.S. regulators who have been casting suspicious eyes on Google’s dominance in online advertising, its drive to create the world’s largest library and shared board members between the search giant and Apple. The Justice Department was hours away from filing an anti-trust suit against Google last fall over a Google-Yahoo advertising agreement that Google nixed to head off the suit.

So could Google be next for the European Commission? Though there’s currently no proceedings underway and the Europeans found no problems with Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, Jeffrey Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy thinks they could get interested.

E.U. Fines Intel $1.5 Billion, Could Google Be Next? | Epicenter | Wired.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Intel vows to fight €1bn EU fine (guardian.co.uk)
• Why the EU goes after U.S. companies (money.cnn.com)