The European Commission has just delivered a fillip to the many rivals who would like to see the power of Google’s search engine curtailed. But even the power of Brussels cannot turn the clock back a decade on the consumer internet.

Foundem — the tiny UK shopping service that was the first to lodge a formal antitrust complaint against Google in Brussels, leading to this week’s record €2.4bn fine against the company — has mothballed its online service. Visitors are informed that, because of the way Google unfairly penalises the company in its search results, “few visitors reach Foundem to witness how it has become a pale shadow of its former self”.

Other companies involved in online comparison shopping, the service that was the focus of the commission’s case, have seen much of their business wiped out. Richard Stables, chief executive of Kelkoo, said this week that his company had missed out on “10 years of development and growth”. The revenues Kelkoo generates from visitors referred by search engines have all but disappeared since 2010, falling from $12m to $200,000.