So Google has just been fined by the European commission for another antitrust violation, and it a big one, €1.49bn ($1.7bn). The violation involves Google selling advertising space related to searches carried out on third party websites.
EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager while speaking at a conference said that the search giants “by far the biggest” search ad broker in the region, with its AdSense platform taking a share in Europe of well above 70% since 2006 had engaged in illegal practices in order to cement its dominant market position”. She went on to say “Today’s decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform,”
she also added that “There was no reason for Google to include these restrictive clauses in its contracts except to keep rivals out of the market,” which is absolutely true.
Remember last year the commissioner tasked three special advisers with looking at the challenges competition law faces as digital technology worms its way into all industries and areas, disrupting everything and this is the third time Google is been fined for antitrust violation.
The first which happened in the summer aitb Google involving in anti-competitive behaviour to android attracted them a huge and still all time high $5BN, like that wasn’t enough, in mid 2017 they were fined another $2.7BN for shopping antitrust violation.
In recent years Vestager has also flagged concerns about several other Google products, including travel search, image search and maps. Though no more formal probes have been announced.
We are still awaiting comments by Google on the case.
