E.U. Fines Google €2.95 Billion for Abusing Its Online Advertising Dominance ⇥ politico.eu

Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s vice president of “Clean, Just, and Competitive Transition”:

Google abused its power by favouring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of its competitors, online advertisers and publishers.

As a result of Google’s illegal practices, advertisers faced higher marketing costs which they likely passed on to European consumers in the form of higher prices for products and services. Google’s tactics also reduced revenues for publishers, which may have led to lower service quality and higher subscription costs for consumers.

Google’s abusive behaviour therefore had a negative impact on all European citizens in their day-to-day use of the web.

This is illegal under EU competition rules and therefore our decision orders Google to pay a fine of €2.95 billion.

Jacob Parry, Politico:

Google now has until early November — or 60 days — to tell the Commission how it intends to resolve that conflict of interest and to remedy the alleged abuse.

The Commission said it would not rule out a structural divestiture of Google’s adtech assets — but it “first wishes to hear and assess Google’s proposal.”

Kevin Breuninger, CNBC:

President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to launch a trade investigation to “nullify” what he said were discriminatory fines being levied by Europe against U.S. tech firms such as Google and Apple.

A United States court has also found Google’s dominance of online advertising is an illegal monopoly and will begin arguing over what to do about it later this month. A different U.S. court’s resolution to the search monopoly trial earlier this week was not particularly substantial; its stock went up after the judge announced remedies. Perhaps the advertising case will play out differently in the U.S. but I have my doubts.