A UK couple has won a 15-year-long legal battle against Google, with the tech giant facing a record 2.4 billion pound fine for market abuse. Shivaun and Adam Raff, founders of the price comparison website ‘Foundem', launched their business in 2006. Soon after going live, they noticed a dramatic drop in their website's visibility on Google searches for key terms such as “price comparison” and “shopping.”
The unexpected drop was caused by a search penalty from Google's automated spam filters that ranked their site much lower than expected. This penalty affected Foundem's ability to generate revenue after users couldn't access the site through Google's search results.
"We were monitoring our pages and how they were ranking, and then we saw them all plummet almost immediately," Mr Adam told the BBC. Initially, the couple assumed the dip in visibility was an error. "We just assumed we had to escalate to the right place and it would be overturned," Ms Shivaun explained. Even after two years and despite many attempts, Google didn't lift the penalty. Foundem's traffic continued to suffer, while other search engines ranked it normally.
In 2010, their case gained traction after they approached the European Commission. A lengthy antitrust investigation found Google unfairly promoted its own shopping service over competitors like Foundem. The Commission ultimately ruled, in 2017, that Google abused its market dominance, imposing a fine of 2.4 billion pounds.
However, Google appealed, sparking seven years of legal battles. In 2024, the European Court of Justice upheld the fine, rejecting Google's appeals.
For Shivaun and Adam Raff, the conclusion felt long overdue. "We've both been brought up maybe under the delusion that we can make a difference, and we really don't like bullies," said Ms Shivaun.
Google maintains the fine addresses practices that ended in 2017. A spokesperson told BBC, “The changes we made in 2017 to comply with the European Commission's Shopping decision have worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services.”
The Raffs are pursuing a civil damages claim against Google, set for trial in 2026, though Foundem was forced to close in 2016. "If we had known it would take this long, we might have thought twice," said Mr Adam, acknowledging the toll of their 15-year battle.
