European Union regulators have fined Google 1.49 billion euros ($1.7 billion) for abusing its dominant role in online advertising, the third big antitrust penalty they’ve given the internet giant since 2017.
BRUSSELS — European Union regulators have fined Google 1.49 billion euros ($1.7 billion) for abusing its dominant role in online advertising, the third big antitrust penalty they’ve given the internet giant since 2017.
The latest punishment means the commission has now issued Google with almost $10 billion in fines from probes into various parts of the Silicon Valley tech company’s business.
In the latest ruling, Google and parent company Alphabet were found to have breached EU rules by imposing restrictive clauses in contracts with websites that used its AdSense advertising business. That prevented Google rivals from placing their ads on these sites, the EU’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said Wednesday.
“Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform,” Vestager told a news conference as she outlined the results of the long-running probe.
The AdSense For Search service — known simply as AdSense — lets Google act as a middleman between advertisers and website owners who want to make money by selling space for ads.
