AfterDawn: Tech news

Google's newest antitrust fine determined: $1.69 billion

Written by Matti Robinson @ 21 Mar 2019 2:26

Google's newest antitrust fine determined: $1.69 billion As expected, the European Commission has now come up with a fitting bill for Google's newest strain of antitrust violations.
As reported earlier, Google violated EU's antitrust laws with their advertisement network AdSense.

During the time of previous reports the size of the fine was not revealed, but now we have proper figures from the European Commission themselves. As reported, this one is the smallest of the three antitrust fines Google has gotten from EU, but is still significant and in the same billion dollar range as the others.

Previously Google has been ruled two fees, 4.34 billion euro ($4.91 billion) for abusing competitive advantage with Android and 2.4 billion euro ($2.72 billion) for preferring Google's price comparison data in their search engine.

Google is set to pay a fine of 1.49 billion euro (approx. $1.69 billion) for requiring advertisers an exclusivity, or "relaxed exclusivity", for search adverts. This happened since 2006 up until 2009, after which Google implemented a less strict but still illegal Premium Placement clauses.



The latter forced websites to still offer Google's AdSense the most profitable spot.

According to EU legislator and regulator, the European Commission, Both of these practices are EU against the Union's antitrust rules.

Previous Next Write a comment
Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Sony suspends memory card sales because memory chips are simply not available Sony suspends memory card sales because memory chips are simply not available (28 Mar 2026 6:49)
Sony has announced that it is temporarily suspending the sale of memory cards used in mobile phones and digital cameras, among other things. The company states that the reason is problems with the availability of memory chips.
Austria plans to ban social media for under 14 year olds Austria plans to ban social media for under 14 year olds (28 Mar 2026 6:17)
Austria is planning to ban social media for children under 14. The reform aims to protect children from harmful effects and addictions, but at the same time, it is problematic from a privacy perspective.
TP-Link urges users to update their routers - several vulnerabilities patched TP-Link urges users to update their routers - several vulnerabilities patched (26 Mar 2026 1:56)
Serious security vulnerabilities have been discovered in several TP-Link router models, for which patches were released at the end of March 2026. The company urges users to update their router software immediately.
Google: The feared Q-Day is now expected to happen in 2029 Google: The feared Q-Day is now expected to happen in 2029 (25 Mar 2026 4:32)
Google has advanced its estimate of when current forms of encryption will become insecure. The moment is called Q-Day, or Quantum Day, when the computational power of quantum computers will be sufficient to break currently used encryptions.
OpenAI shuts down its AI video service Sora OpenAI shuts down its AI video service Sora (24 Mar 2026 6:28)
OpenAI has decided to shut down Sora, its AI video creator, just months after its release. The decision is due to issues such as copyright problems and the deepfake phenomenon.

News archive