EU Fines Google $3.45 Billion Over Adtech Practices

The European Commission fined Google 2.95 billion euros—around $3.45 billion—on Friday over its abusive practices in advertising technology (adtech). The agency said the tech giant had favored its own ad displays and systems, engaging in anticompetitive behavior.

According to the official announcement, the Commission’s investigation revealed that Google had been abusing its dominant position in adtech since 2014, breaching Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

“It did so by favouring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers, and online publishers,” states the announcement. “Google has now 60 days to inform the Commission about how it intends to do so.”

The European antitrust watchdog explained that Google abused its adtech tools—its publisher ad servers, programmatic ad buying tools, and ad exchange AdX. In one case, the investigation showed that Google favored AdX by making it the most attractive exchange and informing it of the best bid from competitors in advance. This allowed Google to charge a higher fee for its services.

“Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech, harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers,” said Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies.”

According to Reuters, U.S. President Donald Trump has called the Commission’s decision “unfair” and threatened to take action against the organization.

“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies,” wrote Trump in a post on the social media platform Truth Social.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 states that the U.S. can sanction foreign countries for engaging in “unreasonable” actions that burden U.S. commerce.

Google also faces another antitrust complaint in the European Union over its AI Overview tool, issued by the Independent Publishers Alliance in July.