Google fined €1.49 billion ($1.68 billion) from European Union regulators for abusing its dominant role in online advertising.
Google was slapped with an antitrust penalty for the third time. Earlier the multibillion-dollar fine resulted in the formation of separate probes into two other parts of Silicon Valley’s giant business.
In a news conference in Brussels, Margrethe Vestager, EU’s competition commissioner announced the results of the long-running probe of Google’s AdSense advertising business on Wednesday.
This was found that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, breached EU antitrust rules by imposing restrictive clauses in contracts with websites that used AdSense, preventing Google rivals from placing their ads on these sites.
Vestager further stated, “Today’s decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform.”
Google “prevented its rivals from having a chance to innovate and to compete in the market on their merits,” Vestager said. “Advertisers and website owners, they had less choice and likely faced higher prices that would be passed on to consumers.”
AdSense which is an older Google product helps the web publishers to add text ads on their websites, with the content.
The launch of a probe took a long time as Microsoft filed an EU antitrust complaint in 2009 and it was finally launched in 2016. This was said that Google had already made some changes to amend their mistakes.
Last year, Vestager hit the company with a record €4.34 billion ($5 billion) fine following an investigation into its Android operating system.
In 2017, she smacked Google with a €2.42 billion fine in a case involving its online shopping search results.