European Commission fines Google €1.49 billion for abusive practices in online advertising

The European Commission has fined Google €1.49 billion for breaching European Union antitrust rules. Google has abused its market dominance by imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites which prevented Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites. Google's practices amount to an abuse of Google's dominant position in the online search advertising intermediation market by preventing competition on the merits. Today's decision concludes that Google is dominant in the market for online search advertising intermediation in the European Economic Area (EEA) since at least 2006. This is based in particular on Google's very high market shares, exceeding 85% for most of the period. Google has abused this market dominance by preventing rivals from competing in the online search advertising intermediation market. Based on a broad range of evidence, the Commission found that Google's conduct harmed competition and consumers, and stifled innovation. Google's rivals were unable to grow and offer alternative online search advertising intermediation services to those of Google. As a result, owners of websites had limited options for monetizing space on these websites and were forced to rely almost solely on Google.