By Natalia Drozdiak
BRUSSELS--The European Union has extended Google Inc.'s deadline
until Aug. 31 to respond to charges that the U.S. company is
skewing its search results to favor its own comparison-shopping
service, a Google spokesman and the European Commission both said
Thursday.
The Commission, the bloc's antitrust regulator, had set a
deadline for Aug. 17 after previously granting Google additional
time so it could review the documents that allege that the company
favors its comparison shopping function in search results.
The EU filed the formal complaint in April, when it also opened
a separate probe into its Android mobile-operating system.
Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said Google had requested
the additional time to respond to the charges in the shopping
search case.
"The Commission analyzed the reasons for the request [and] as a
result, it has granted an extension allowing Google to fully
exercise its rights of defense," Mr. Cardoso said.
It wasn't immediately clear why the company asked for the second
extension.
The Commission frequently grants extensions in major antitrust
cases, to ensure that companies are given ample opportunity to
defend themselves. That helps avoid legal hurdles if the regulator
needs to defend its judgment before the EU's appeal courts in
Luxembourg.
Google earlier this week announced it would restructure its
company, separating its highly profitable search and advertising
business from its other ventures and organizing them under the
holding company Alphabet Inc.
The EU in response had said those changes wouldn't affect its
antitrust investigations into the company and that it was sticking
to its latest deadline for Google to respond to the formal charges
in the shopping search case.
The EU's charges, the first formal complaint against Google by
an antitrust regulator, could lead to billions of euros in fines
and requirements for the company to change its business
practices.
The formal complaint could also be broadened to include other
domains, such as travel and local services, where Google is accused
of favoring its own services over those of others.
Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires