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The EU has hit Google with yet another antitrust fine for favoring its own online display advertising technology services, and is calling for it to divest part of its business.
It said that Google has been favoring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of its competitors, online advertisers and publishers.
This, it said, has given advertisers higher marketing costs, which they likely passed on to European consumers in the form of higher prices for products and services.
The European Commission is now fining the company €2.95 billion, and has ordered it to stop the practices it’s objecting to and put measures in place to end its conflicts of interest in the adtech supply chain. Google now has 60 days to tell the Commission how it intends to do so.
“Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This behavior is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” said Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition.
“Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies.”
The Commission suggested that the only remedy might be to force the company to sell some part of its adtech business, saying that seemed “both necessary and proportionate”.
It can only order this, though, if there’s no equally effective behavioral remedy, or where any equally effective behavioral remedy would be more burdensome for the company than a structural remedy like divestment.
The dispute originally stems from a complaint made by the European Publishers Council, alleging that Google had been illegally preferencing its own Google Ad Exchange (AdX) marketplace since 2014.
And it’s been dragging on for years, with the Commission opening formal proceedings in June 2021 and sending the company a Statement of Objections a year later. Google responded in December 2023, defending its actions.
And this is the fourth major antitrust fine that the EU has imposed on the company, with a record €4.34 billion penalty in 2018 over abuse of Android market dominance, and fines of €2.42 billion in 2017 and €1.49 billion in 2019.
The decision echoes concerns in the U.S., where a trial is soon to begin over accusations that Google is illegally maintaining a monopoly in display search advertising. There, too, there are calls for the company to divest some of its display advertising business.
However, Donald Trump appears to disagree, saying that paying the EU fine would effectively take money that would otherwise go to American investments and jobs.
“This is on top of the many other Fines and Taxes that have been issued against Google and other American Tech Companies, in particular,” he wrote on his Truth Social social media platform.
“Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer will not stand for it! As I have said before, my Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand.”
He threatened to launch a Section 301 investigation against the EU in retaliation, a procedural measure that could lead to tariffs being imposed on the EU.
Google has been approached for comment.
