Google to face its third fine by the European Union on the grounds on antitrust, according to internal sources familiar with the matter. They levied this fine upon Google for manipulation in the AdSense advertising service. It has come to notice that this fine might be much smaller than the previous two fines paid by Google. This case against Google was initially filed in 2016.
Google runs an advertising service that goes by the name of AdSense. Advertisers using this service can post their ads on various websites which have partnered with Google for displaying advertisements in exchange for revenue.
In 2016, the European Union opened its third case against Google based on an accusation which stated that Google prevented the third parties using Adsense from using any products related to Google’s competitors. This action by Google clearly promotes antitrust and was therefore taken up by the European Union.
At the time of the filing of the case, Google held a monopoly in the European Union’s market for search advertisement intermediation. From over a decade, Google has held 80% of the market. These statistics further strengthened the antitrust allegations against Google.
After the accusations about AdSense’s malpractices were highlighted and brought under the European Union’s notice, Google changed its conditions. From then on, Google gave these third parties more scope to display advertisements from its competitors too.
AdSense might not be the only issue that is going to bother Google. There might be a strong possibility that many aspects surrounding antitrust might arise as complaints against Google. As of now, the European Union’s antitrust department has been enquiring Google’s rivals if it was unfairly influencing the local search competitors.
While they finalized the case, the penalty amount is yet to be announced. Previously, Google has been slapped with a 4.34 Billion Euro fine by Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner for using Android to block its competitors’ products. In 2017, there was a 2.4 Billion Euro fine for blocking the shopping comparison websites of its rivals.
Earlier this month, reporters received confirmation from Vestager about the case being finalized. However, she declined to comment about the timing of her decision.
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