As battle between Google and the EU continues, the search giant may face a record €3 billion fine

We had heard that the EU was planning to levy a substantial fine on Google for its alleged favoring of its own services in search over those belonging to competitors last year already, and the Telegraph is reporting that the European Commission is now estimating a hefty €3 billion ($3.4b) tag…

The allegation claims that Google has promoted its online shopping service within internet searches to the detriment of rival alternatives, which is in line with many of the previous formal antitrust complaints the Silicon Valley firm had been faced with. Google was accused of pushing down restaurant results from Yelp and TripAdvisor, which directly targeted the company’s search results.

The case, which has been going on since 2010, comes after three allegedly failed attempts at a compromise, after which the Californian company refused to settle unless the EC were to change its stance.

The Telegraph’s sources mentioned that officials were planning to openly announce the fine by June, although the exact figure had yet to be finalised.

The accuse follows a series of other controversies involving the European Union and the Mountain View company – including a claim that the search giant was breaking antitrust rules over Android‘s “restrictive” dominance which supposedly penalized other OEM partners.

Less than a month ago, Getty Images also addressed the tech giant with accusations of “promotion of piracy” regarding its image search engine, apparently discouraging users to head over the original source given that Google Images now offers full-sized pictures from within itself.

Other bits of the report in fact mention that Google “will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals,” the British paper said.