Google wins appeal against $1.7 billion EU fine for ‘abusive’ advertising practices

[Pelican Press 0]

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wins appeal against $1.7 billion EU fine for ‘abusive’ advertising practices

The amount of fines

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has to pay in Europe may have become just a bit smaller. It has successfully convinced the ********* Union’s General Court to annul the €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) penalty levied against it back in 2019 for what the ********* Commission described as “abusive practices in online advertising.” According to the

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, the General Court agreed with the commission’s assessment that

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did block rival advertisers from its platform. However, it argued that the commission ******* to take into account “all the relevant circumstances” when it assessed how long the company had implemented anti-competitive practices.

The commission, under competition chief Margrethe Vestager, found back in 2019 that

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had prohibited publishers from placing search adverts from competitors on its search results pages from 2006 until 2009. It changed its rules slightly in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2016 that it removed the clause pertaining to the restriction in its contracts. The fine for this particular case was larger than expected, because the commission said it took into account “the duration and gravity of the infringement.”

“This case is about a very narrow subset of text-only search ads placed on a limited number of publishers’ websites,”

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said in a statement to the

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. “We made changes to our contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, even before the commission’s decision. We are pleased that the court has recognized errors in the original decision and annulled the fine. We will review the full decision closely.” Meanwhile, the commission told the publication that it “will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.” It could still appeal the court’s decision.

This is just one of the multiple antitrust fines the ********* Commission has slapped against

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over the past years. Earlier this month, EU’s highest court upheld a different $2.7 billion penalty against the company. The commission imposed that fine on

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back in 2017, because it found that the company, as Vestager explained, “abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors.”

Vestager is stepping down from her role as the ********* Union’s commissioner for competition within the next few weeks. She has been tough on big tech companies throughout her run, and the market ****** cases she has filed over the years led to the creation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a regulation meant to prevent the largest players in the industry from abusing their market power.

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#

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#wins #appeal #billion #fine #abusive #advertising #practices

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