The European Commission has fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.5 billion) for abusing its dominant position in the digital advertising technology market and favoring its own adtech services over competitors.
In addition, Google received an order from the EU’s top antitrust regulator requiring it to cease anti-competitive practices and “self-preferencing,” and to take measures to reduce future conflicts of interest in the advertising technology market.
The Commission found that Google had abused its dominant position, in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), at least from 2014 to the present, by prioritizing its own ad exchange, AdX. Google would notify it of competitors’ best bids to win auctions and sustained AdX’s advantage through preferential bid routing, avoiding competing exchanges.
Recall that in 2023 the European Commission already notified Google of its preliminary findings. At the time, it was reported that abuses in online advertising technologies violate EU antitrust rules concerning activities in the ad tech sector. Google stated then that these arguments were “based on a misunderstanding of the ad tech industry.”
Lee-Anne Mulholland, head of regulatory affairs at Google, has already told the media that the company considers the antitrust regulator’s decision incorrect and intends to appeal it.
“The European Commission’s decision regarding our ad technologies is incorrect, and we will appeal it. It imposes an unwarranted fine and requires changes that will harm thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to turn a profit,” said Mulholland. “There is nothing anti-competitive about providing services to buyers and sellers of ads, and there are more alternatives to our services now than ever before.”
This is the fourth time the European Commission has fined Google for abusing its dominant market position. In March 2019, the Commission fined the company €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) for blocking the display of competitors’ ads on publishers’ search results pages.
In 2018, the antitrust authority imposed a record fine of €4.34 billion ($5.04 billion) on Google “for illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices, used to reinforce the dominance of Google’s search engine.”
In July 2017, Google was fined €2.42 billion (US$2.72 billion) for hindering competition from other companies in the online search and price comparison market by abusing its dominant position in the search engine market.
It is also worth noting that last week France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) fined Google €325 million ($378 million) for displaying ads to Gmail users without their consent and for violating the rules on the use of cookies.