The European Commission is to impose a ‘modest’ Fine in the Google AdTech Case. The European Commission is reportedly going to order Google to pay a “modest” fine, but not require that it sell part of its AdTech business when it announces penalties in an antitrust case involving the giant’s AdTech business over the coming weeks.
The fine will likely come to less than the 4.3 billion euros in October 2018 national Competition Agency altogether now has fined it, Reuters reported Friday (Aug. 29), citing unnamed sources.
Hungary’s The Commission declined to comment on the report by Reuters, even as Google pointed out a blog post from 2023 in which it set out objections to the Commission’s interpretation of the AdTech sector, according to other news agency reports.
The report attributes imposition of what it terms as “moderate” fines to new European Union antitrust chief Teresa Ribera’s approach, placing the focus on urging companies to cease their anticompetitive practices rather than punishing them with heavy penalties.
In the AdTech case, the European Commission has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the online AdTech industry since 2014. The Commission alleges that the company used an iron hand in soft dong both sides of the market with its fam or. Showing favouritism to its own AdX Ad Exchange, it forced ads bought in double auctions down one path only, competitors say:
Google argued that both advertisers and publishers can be served by one company, a practice common in the industry. Competitors have similar AdTech businesses catering to both sides of the market, advertisers and publishers. Integrated technology stacks enable advertisers and publishers to establish a close, high-quality link.
According to today’s report by Reuters, income from advertising represented 75.6% of Google’s total revenue in 2024. Google also faces opposition in the United States, where it is engaged in a legal battle with the Justice Department, which said that the company had unlawfully maintained monopolies in crucial areas of online advertising.
In May, it had already been reported that the Justice Dept called on Google to divest key parts of its digital advertising business, such as its AdX marketplace and also its DFP ad-serving platform. The Justice Dept claimed, in a court filing at the time, that such divestiture was essential to tearing apart Google’s dominance and restoring competition in the markets for Ad exchanges and for Publisher Ad Servers.
