Google Shopping – Liability of the merchant

Offering and promoting one's own goods via online platforms is nowadays standard practice in online retail. Google Shopping is also very popular among online merchants. However, problems can arise if the entry in Google Shopping is not up to date.

An online merchant had listed its products on Google Shopping. Originally, shipping was supposed to be free. On the merchant's website, however, the indication of free shipping was then replaced with shipping cost information. On Google, the text "Free shipping" continued to appear, even though shipping costs now actually applied.

This was seen as a breach of competition law and the matter went to court.

The court's decision on Google Shopping

The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Naumburg decided by judgment of 16.06.2016 – Az. 9 U 98/15, that the merchant is liable for the divergence of price information between Google Shopping and the merchant's website.

In the court proceedings, it could not be clarified who was responsible for the incorrect shipping cost information – the online merchant or Google Shopping. However, the lack of clarity works to the detriment of the merchant. The merchant was nonetheless ordered to pay, since the advertising measures it arranged were objectively incorrect and thus constitute a violation of the Price Indication Ordinance.

The court further states that even if one were to assume a technical error on the part of Google Shopping, this would not exclude the merchant's liability, because Google Shopping would then be an agent in the sense of competition law.

Conclusion

The fact that when promoting products via price comparison engines, the shipping costs to be added to the purchase price must be stated there and not only on the website of the provider was already established by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in 2009 (we reported). Price information must furthermore correspond to the current state. Therefore, price changes must be reported to the platform without delay. However, even if the merchant bears no fault, it is still liable for errors of the search engine when using Google Shopping's offer.