Google fined €2.95bn by EU for abusing advertising dominance
Google has been fined by the EU for € 2.95 billion (£ 2.5 billion) because it was claimed to abuse its power in the advertising technology industry – the technology that determines which ads should be placed online and where.
On Friday, the European Commission said that the technology giant has violated competition laws to damage competitors by supporting their own products to exhibit online ads.
It comes in the midst of increasing examination by worldwide regulators Through Tech Dev’s online search and advertising empire.
Google, BBC’s decision of the commission “wrong” and said it would object.
“It gives an unfair fine and requires changes to harm by making it difficult for thousands of European enterprises to make money for thousands of European enterprises,” the head of the global regulatory works on Google. He said.
“There is nothing competitive in providing services for advertising buyers and sellers and there is more alternatives than ever before.”
US President Donald Trump also attacked the decision and threatened to launch an investigation into European technology practices that could lead to tariffs in a mission on social media.
“As I said before, my management will not allow these discriminatory actions to stop.”
“The European Union should stop this application immediately against American companies!”
In recent months, Trump has repeatedly criticized Bloc’s fines and execution actions against US technology companies, but the US government has brought its own lawsuits On the monopoly of Google’s online advertising market.
At the beginning of this week, the Commission has postponed Google’s good announcement among the tensions between the EU and the United States.
In the Commission’s Friday’s decision, the Commission accused Google for “self -choice” above others.
As part of his findings, he said that Google deliberately increased his own advertising exchange Adx on the competitor exchanges where ads were purchased and sold in real time.
As a result, competitors and publishers claim to have higher costs and face lower income, they claim to be in the form of more expensive services to consumers.
The regulator ordered the company to terminate such applications and pay a penalty of approximately € 3 billion.
The fine of the Commission is one of the biggest fines that he has delivered to technology companies accused of violating competition rules to date.
In 2018, Google was fined € 4.34 billion (£ 3.9 billion) – accusing the company of using the Android operating system. cement as a dominant player in that market.
Deputy General Manager of Commission Teresa Ribera, said in a statement on Friday, while deciding to give a higher fine of the regulator, Google’s anti -competitive behavior took into account the previous findings, he said.
“In line with our usual application, Google has broken the rules of the game for the third time, we have increased Google’s goodness,” he said.
Mrs. Ribera also warned the technology giant for 60 days to elaborate how to change its applications, otherwise the commission would try to impose its solution.
“At this stage, the only way to end Google’s conflict of interest is a structural solution to sell a part of advertising technology business.” He said.
