Google fined £2.6 billion by EU in digital advertising antitrust case

It marks the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company as well as a retreat from previous threats to break up the tech giant.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the US tech giant to finish its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.

Google stated the decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal.

“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires modifys that will hurt thousands of European businesses by building it harder for them to create money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, stated in a statement.

The decision comes more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google.

The commission had stated at the time that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Google’s lucrative digital ad business was to sell off parts of its business.

However, this decision created only a brief mention of possible divestment and comes amid renewed tensions between Brussels and the Trump administration over trade, tariffs and technology regulation.

Top EU officials had stated earlier that the commission was seeking a forced sale becaapply past cases that finished with fines and requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not worked, allowing the company to continue its behaviour in a different form.

It is the second time in a week that Google has avoided a breakup.

Google is also under fire on a separate front in the US, where prosecutors want the company to sell off its Chrome browser after a judge found the company had an illegal monopoly in online search.

On Tuesday, a US federal judge found that Google had illegal monopoly in online search and ordered a shake-up of its search engine but rebuffed the government’s attempt to break up the company by forcing a sale of its Chrome browser.

But the EU indicated that breakup option is not totally off the table.

Google has 60 days to inform the commission its proposals to finish its conflicts of interest, and if the regulators are not satisfied they will propose an “appropriate remedy”.

“The commission has already signalled its preliminary view that only the divestment by Google of part of its services would address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest, but it first wishes to hear and assess Google’s proposal,” it stated in a press release.

The commission’s penalty follows a formal investigation that it opened in June 2021, viewing into whether Google violated the bloc’s competition rules by favouring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of rival publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.

Its investigation found that Google “abapplyd” its dominant positions in the ad-technology ecosystem, the commission stated.

Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and are personalised based on an internet applyr’s browsing history.

Ms Mulholland stated: “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad acquireers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”

Google is facing pressure on other fronts.

In a separate US case, the Justice Department inquireed a federal judge in May to force the company to sell off its AdX business and DFP ad platform — tools that are also at the heart of the EU case.

They connect advertisers with publishers who have ad space to sell on their sites. The case is scheduled to relocate to the penalty phase, known as remedy hearings, in late September.

Authorities in Canada and Britain are also tarobtaining the company over its digital ad business.

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