Brussels estimated on Wednesday June 14 “preliminarily” that Google had “abused its dominant position” in online advertising display technologies, threatening the US group with having to cede “part of its services” in this area.
The investigation is not over and the Mountain View group will be able to make their arguments heard. But I could get another giant fine. Google has already been fined a total of 8 billion euros in the EU for various anti-competitive practices.
Favoritism for your own ad exchange
Among the alleged complaints against Google, Brussels believes that the US group favored its own AdX ad exchange in auctions managed by its own ad server. The company would have told AdX the current best bids in advance to make sure it won the auction.
Another ruling retained, a favoritism by AdX “in the way its ad buying tools Google Ads and DV360 place their offers on ad exchanges,” specifies the European Commission.
The complaint from Brussels had been revealed by the Wall Street Journal which referred to the investigation opened in 2021 on Google’s anti-competitive practices in online advertising. The European Commission could require Google to sell parts of its ad-selling business.
The European executive, competition police in the European Union, considers precisely for the moment “that only the sale by Google of a part of its services would allow its concerns to be dismissed.” If, after the investigation, the Commission concludes that there is sufficient evidence of the existence of an infringement, it can impose a fine of up to 10% of the annual worldwide turnover.
Source: BFM TV
