After seven long years, the European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is set to finally bring her antitrust case against Google to a close. Read more: Europe vs Silicon Valley: behind enemy lines with the woman deciding Google's fate
With the decision believed to be coming "within months," we track its timeline back to 2006.
June 2006
Shivaun and Adam Raff officially launch their "vertical" price-comparison website, Foundem. But almost as soon as it goes live, it disappears from Google. The Raffs email the company but receive no reply. A few weeks later they discover their site is also being marked down by Google's AdWords.
May 2007
Google releases Universal Search, a new type of search that blends results from Google's own vertical search engines – such as Google Images or Google Maps – into its regular results. Once considered the window to the internet, Google increasingly is the internet.
November/December 2009
The Raffs file their formal complaint to the European Commission. With pressure mounting, Google suddenly relents and manually white-lists Foundem. Instantly, the site's traffic from Google increased by around "10,000 per cent", according to the company's estimates. Now the Raffs must make a decision: do they carry on with their lives or continue to pursue the court case?
December 2009
Adam Raff publishes a column in The New York Times entitled Search, but You May Not Find. "Google's treatment of Foundem stifled our growth," he writes. "We may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google everything - Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books."
February 2010
Foundem files an updated complaint to the European Commission, which is now obliged to investigate. The case against Google has officially begun.
November 2010
Commissioner Joaquín Almunia announces he is investigating allegations Google abused a dominant position to undermine competitors with vertical search engines such as Foundem's.
Read more: In-depth: The future of search
December 2010
German publishers have been complaining about Google to their national competition authority. Now these are wrapped into the Commission's antitrust case.
January 2011
The US Federal Trade Commission – the US equivalent of the Competition Commission – reveals it is opening a parallel investigation into Google.
March 2011
Microsoft joins in, filing a European Competition Complaint accusing Google of restricting competition to the "detriment of European consumers". It also funds anti-Google lobbying groups such as FairSearch, which later employs Shivaun Raff as a consultant.
May 2012
Almunia makes the decision to pursue a settlement, giving Google "an opportunity to offer remedies to address the concerns". He asks Google to come up with voluntary solutions in four areas of its search and advertising business strands.
July 2012
Google outlines its concessions to the EU, prompting a positive reaction from Almunia. Next: a market test, asking for feedback.
January 2013
The Federal Trade Commission ends its investigation into Google's search business, saying there's no evidence the firm's actions harmed consumers.
February 2013
Google makes an offer: it will add links to rival sites at the top of search results. Almunia says the case could be settled by the end of the year.
March 2013
Foundem and ten other firms, including Expedia and TripAdvisor, send Almunia a letter, asking him to drop the settlement approach and go after Google in a formal manner.
Read more: What's the difference between Google and Alphabet?
April 2013
A group representing Microsoft, Expedia and Nokia files an antitrust complaint against Google over its Android OS. It urges the EU to investigate Google's "deceptive conduct" in the growing mobile market.
June 2013
Leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reveal the scale of internet surveillance – including the fact the NSA bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.
January 2014
Google's Eric Schmidt and Almunia shake hands on a deal at Davos to create an auction mechanism so that competitors can bid for places in a shaded box at the top of search pages.
April 2014
Matthias Döpfner, CEO of Germany's biggest newspaper publisher Axel Springer, writes an open letter accusing Google of operating a business model that "in less reputable circles would be called a protection racket".
Read more: Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's head of Android, on EU regulators and security headaches
June 2014
Almunia presses ahead, sending out letters to the now 20 complainants in the Google case, informing them he is going to reject their complaints. But dissatisfaction with the deal is mounting. In the same month, Google's video website YouTube is hit with an antitrust complaint by record labels.
September 2014
Under intense pressure, Almunia admits defeat. His four-year term is up and has ended without a satisfactory settlement.
November 2014
Margrethe Vestager takes over from Almunia, saying the issues in the Google case are so complex she is going to take some time to look again at the charges.
March 2015
Sections of a Federal Trade Commission memo are sent to The Wall Street Journal: it shows emails from officials saying that Google is posing "real harm to consumers and to innovation". Suddenly, the earlier decision not to investigate looks very questionable.
Read more: How to delete your Google search history and stop tracking
April 2015
Vestager sends Google a formal statement of objections "for abusing its dominance in the search-engine market by systematically favouring its own comparison shopping product in its general search results pages." Vestager also steps up a probe into its Android operating system.
July 2016
Vestager files a third antitrust charge, this time against Google's AdSense advertising business.
October 2016
Google responds, refuting the allegations, but in this case Vestager is the highest authority. If this case sets a precedent, then Google's troubles may only be beginning.
June 2017
The Financial Times reports that Google could be handed a fine of over $1 billion "in the coming weeks". If true, this would be the biggest fine ever handed out by the European Union.
To be continued...
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
