Google fined $3.5 billion by EU over adtech monopoly

Google was ordered to pay nearly USD 3.5 billion on Friday after European Union regulators ruled the company violated competition rules by squeezing out rivals in the digital advertising sector. The penalty marks the second major legal blow against the tech giant in just one week.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, concluded that Google had leveraged its market power to cement control over display advertising, disadvantaging smaller competitors. Regulators said the company’s role across multiple points of the advertising chain created “inherent conflicts of interest.”

“Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers and consumers,” said Teresa Ribera, the EU’s lead antitrust official.

The ruling stems from a 2021 investigation into Google’s practices. The fine amounts to 2.95 billion euros, and the company has two months to present compliance measures. Google quickly announced plans to challenge the decision in court.

“There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs.

The EU decision comes just days after a US judge ordered Google to share search data with rivals in a Justice Department case that targets its grip on the online search market. The court stopped short of requiring Google to divest its Chrome browser.

Google’s ad business, which is critical to the multibillion-dollar revenues that fund its free services, such as Search, Gmail, and Maps, is also under scrutiny in another US lawsuit scheduled to go to trial this month. The Justice Department accuses the company of using its dominance to control nearly every step of the digital advertising pipeline, from selling ads on its own platforms to brokering space on other websites.