Italian antitrust officials will check Google for unfair commercial practices

Italy’s antimonopoly authority has initiated an investigation into Google and its parent company Alphabet due to alleged unfair commercial practices, Reuters reports, citing a statement from the regulator.

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Google is asking its users for consent to link its services, which “may constitute a deceptive and offensive commercial practice,” it said. At the same time, the accompanying information is “incomplete and misleading,” the regulator added. There have been no comments from Google yet.

Earlier it became known that the Italian authorities accused Google of evading taxes in the amount of €1 billion. According to the Milan prosecutor’s office conducting the investigation, since the company’s digital infrastructure facilities are located in the country, it has the opportunity to work in Italy and receive income from which it is obliged to pay taxes. If Google agrees to settle the claims of the country’s authorities, they may bring similar charges to other organizations operating in Italy – Netflix has already agreed to settle the claims.