The European Commission has fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.5 billion) for abusing its dominance in the digital advertising technology market and favoring its adtech services over those of its competitors.
Google was also ordered by the EU’s top antitrust regulator to stop anti-competitive and “self-preferencing” practices and take measures to mitigate future conflicts of interest in the adtech market.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Global Head of Regulatory Affairs, told BleepingComputer that the antitrust regulator’s decision was wrong and that the company will appeal it.
“The European Commission’s decision about our ad tech services is wrong and we will appeal. It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Mulholland said.
“There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”
This follows the Commission’s notification to Google in June 2023 of a preliminary finding that its abusive practices in online advertising technology violated the European Union’s antitrust rules concerning adtech operations. At the time, Google stated that the Commission’s case “rests on flawed interpretations of the ad tech sector.”
This is the fourth time the European Commission has fined Google for abusing its market dominance. In March 2019, the Commission fined Google €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) for blocking rival advertising companies from displaying search ads on publisher search results pages.
In July 2018, Google was fined €2.42 billion ($2.72 billion) for preventing other companies from competing in the online search and comparison shopping market by abusing its search engine dominance.
One year earlier, in June 2017, the EU’s competition watchdog imposed a record €4.34 billion ($5.04 billion) fine on Google “for illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices to strengthen the dominance of Google’s search engine.”
On Wednesday, the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL), France’s data protection authority, also fined Google €325 million ($378 million) for displaying ads between Gmail users’ emails without their consent and violating cookie regulations.
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Sergiu Gatlan