EU authorities have fined Google $ 1.7 billion for blocking advertising of competitors

According to officials from the European Commission, Google deliberately suppressed competition in the field of online advertising. In particular, the company forbade advertising the services of competitors through its AdSense service. This is contrary to European law, and now the company will pay a $ 1.7 billion fine.

What happened

Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager (Margrethe Vestager) said that Google had impeded “fair competition and innovation” by taking advantage of its dominant position in the online search and digital advertising market.
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This is the third antitrust fine imposed on the search giant. In July 2018, regulators from Brussels and Alphabet Holding agreed on a $ 5 billion fine for abusing the leading position of the Android mobile OS.

Google forced smartphone makers to pre-install their own products - search, maps, Chrome browser, as well as the Play Store. Subsequently, the company gave users the ability to select applications during the initial setup of the smartphone.

Earlier, in 2017, Google was fined $ 2.7 billion due to limitations in the functionality of the online shopping module in a search engine.

Investor Reaction

Despite the large fine, Google investors are not particularly worried about the situation - the company's shares rose 2% on the day the news was published. Google's market capitalization on the same day increased by almost $ 17 billion.

The penalty factor from the European Union was completely leveled by the release of a new project - video streaming for gamers Stadia. This project can seriously change the situation in the online gaming market.

EU vs technology companies

Margrethe Vestager also announced proceedings against Amazon and Apple . The European Commission is currently investigating the use of Amazon data - regulators suspect that the company has lowered stores and competitors' products in its system.

In addition, the European Commissioner has promised to examine the complaint of the streaming service Spotify to Apple. According to Spotify, the corporation from Cupertino for many years led unfair competition, for example, prohibited Siri and Homepod from running Spotify, rejected the service application and threatened to remove it from the AppStore.

Vestager also announced plans to explore the potentially “anti-competitive” behavior of Facebook.

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