Reminiscent of the EU's antitrust probe into natural gas giant Gazprom's affairs in 2015, Google too now faces a potential fine by the end of August as a result of abusing its dominant market position in the search engine space.

The fine of $1.1 billion being slammed on Alphabet Inc. is due to Google manipulating its search results to favor its own comparison-shopping service. As per EU regulations, the fine could be increased to as much as 10% of the corporation's annual revenue, which was $90.27 billion last year.

Google faces more severe consequences from the European Commission's action, entailing possible changes not only regarding shopping service logistics but other services as well. The antitrust watchdog's decision could further embolden private litigants to follow suit and seek compensation for damages.

The EU is likely to instruct Google to put its comparison shopping service on equal footing with those of its competitors, such as Foundem.co.uk and Kelkoo.com Ltd. These companies depend on incoming traffic to their site from search engines like Google's, and the equal-treatment requirement could lead to greater visibility for rival services on the tech giant's platform.

Google general counsel Kent Walker has previously argued that forcing the company to place competitors' product ads in its search results "would just subsidize sites that have become less useful for consumers."

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The biggest thing about this incident from an investor's perspective is the notion that Google's questionable credibility has not only been recently established, but was also addressed in the past: these antitrust investigations date back to 2010 and the fact that adequate action was not taken to subdue them on Alphabet Inc.'s part indicates that the corporation may have fallen into a dangerously illusive position of comfort and visage of invincibility that could damage potential for growth and cause instability. This is reflected in Alphabet's (GOOGL  ) shares declining by 0.8% on Friday.

The declining shares are also representative of the advantage Google's competitors will now possess over the search engine king. The EU could force Google to highlight competitors to its shopping comparison site. This has the potential to affect Google's revenue from this service, even though the majority of the company's revenue does not come from comparison sites. Moreover, the fine and ensuing investigation will likely tie up Google's resources and interfere with its flexibility. For example, it could hold off on some acquisitions and product development. Unbundling of applications and the Android Operating System could decrease Google's revenues, hence lowering its stock price.

Finally, the fine could set standards for how the U.S. technology company operates in other fields, including its local and travel services: areas the EU has also been investigating. Part of Google's defense regarding the issue is that the strength of other American technology companies in Europe, including Amazon and Facebook, shows that Google has not restricted Europe's digital market.

Yet, if Google can set a positive example, it can also very well set a negative one, especially as Margrethe Vestager, the EU antitrust chief, adopts a more hardline approach to such investigations.