EU Extends Deadline for Google's Response to Antitrust Charges

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 European Commission, the bloc's antitrust regulator, had initially set a deadline for Aug. 17 after filing a formal complaint against Google in April, charging it with favoring its comparison shopping function in search results. It also opened a separate probe into its Android mobile-operating system.

European Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said Google had requested additional time to respond to the charges in the shopping search case.

"The commission analysed 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 an extension.

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 initial deadline for Google to respond to the formal charges in the shopping search case.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at [e-mail]

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires