The Core

I'm not surprised by this outcome considering how much the EU hates Google, but I feel like I  should be.
The case was basically started because foundem (yes, this heap of shite site) moaned  that they weren't appearing in results. I think most people here have probably ditched sites that were more worthy of ranking than that one, but then we didn't get backed by Microsoft and other blue chip companies to be  their corporate pawn.  They basically got panda'd for having sh##, thin, scraped content.

Google may well abuse their power, but I still think this particular case was largely horseshit

Would love to have a sift through some of the data that made up the case against...

Evidence gathered
In reaching its Decision, the Commission has gathered and comprehensively analysed a broad range of evidence, including:
1)    contemporary documents from both Google and other market players;
2)    very significant quantities of real-world data including 5.2 Terabytes of actual search results from Google (around 1.7 billion search queries);
3)    experiments and surveys, analysing in particular the impact of visibility in search results on consumer behaviour and click-through rates;
4)    financial and traffic data which outline the commercial importance of visibility in Google's search results and the impact of being demoted; and
5)    an extensive market investigation of customers and competitors in the markets concerned (the Commission addressed questionnaires to several hundred companies).

I've just read about the case going through relating to adsense too. This is even more nuts:

Google places search ads directly on the Google search website but also as an intermediary on third party websites through its "AdSense for Search" platform ("search advertising intermediation"). These include websites of online retailers, telecoms operators and newspapers. The websites offer a search box that allows users to search for information. Whenever a user enters a search query, in addition to the search results, also search ads are displayed. If the user clicks on the search ad, both Google and the third party receive a commission.
The Commission considers at this stage that Google is dominant in the market for search advertising intermediation in the European Economic Area (EEA), with market shares of around 80% in the last ten years. A large proportion of Google's revenues from search advertising intermediation stems from its agreements with a limited number of large third parties, so-called "Direct Partners". The Commission has concerns that in these agreements with Direct Partners, Google has breached EU antitrust rules by imposing the following conditions:
Exclusivity: requiring third parties not to source search ads from Google's competitors.
Premium placement of a minimum number of Google search ads: requiring third parties to take a minimum number of search ads from Google and reserve the most prominent space on their search results pages to Google search ads. In addition, competing search ads cannot be placed above or next to Google search ads.
Right to authorise competing ads: requiring third parties to obtain Google's approval before making any change to the display of competing search ads.

Ignore for a moment that they are wrong about exclusivity (the programme requires that no other search ads appear on the same page, but you can run as many programs as you like). I don't get the point about premium placement either, as you can turn that off (or could - I assume you still can).  So that case seems to hang on the fact that they want publishers to be able to be able to change the format so that they could potentially appear in a way that doesn't match the way they were described for sale.

This is the side of the EU that I hate.