The EU’s commissioner for competition, Margrethe Vestager, said Wednesday that Google must pay 1.49 billion euros ($1.69 billion) for stifling competition in the online advertisement sector.
In a statement Wednesday the European Commission said Google had placed exclusivity contracts on publishers, stopping them from including search results from Google’s rivals. It said these clauses were replaced in 2009 by premium payments and in the same year Google had asked publishers to seek permission on how rival ads were displayed.
Speaking in Brussels, the EU’s competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Google had prevented rivals from being able to “compete and innovate fairly” in the online ad market.
“Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” said Vestager.
Google’s Senior Vice President of Global Affairs, Kent Walker, issued a short statement in response.
“We’ve always agreed that healthy, thriving markets are in everyone’s interest. We’ve already made a wide range of changes to our products to address the Commission’s concerns. Over the next few months, we’ll be making further updates to give more visibility to rivals in Europe.”
The Alphabet company has previously defended the use of its ad technology, claiming it had been in place since 2006, is now superseded, and is a minor product.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, Google’s core advertising business saw revenue increase 20 percent from the previous quarter to $32.6 billion — the same rate of growth as the last quarter.
The European Commission said between 2006 to 2016 Google was by far the strongest player in online search advertising in the European Economic Area (EEA), with a market share above 70 percent.
It is the third antitrust fine from Brussels to land on Google’s desk.
Last July, regulators in Brussels hit the Alphabet unit with a $5 billion fine for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile operating system.
In a blog post Tuesday Google’s SVP of Global Affairs, Kent Walker, wrote that European Android customers will now be asked which apps they would like to use instead.
Speaking Wednesday, Vestager said it was welcome that Google was “stepping up its effort with the Android system” and the the European Commission would watch to see how the improved choice unfolded.
In 2017 Google, received a $2.7 billion penalty from the EU for favoring its shopping service over competitors.
