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FRENCH WATCHDOG FINES GOOGLE $267M FOR ABUSING DOMINANT POSITION
- By The Financial District
- Jun 8, 2021
- 2 min read
The French competition authority has imposed a fine of 220 million euros ($267 million) on Google for preferential treatment of its own services in online advertising, Julia Naue reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).
Google did not deny the allegations and the fine was ordered as part of a settlement, according to the regulator on Monday. Google has agreed to adjust its activities, a move accepted by the authority.
"We will be testing and developing these changes over the coming months before rolling them out more broadly, including some globally," Google said in a statement.
The competition authority accused the company of abusing its dominant position in the ad server market, after complaints from several publishing groups including News Corp and Figaro, a French publisher.
One area in which they were disadvantaged is supply-side platforms (SSPs), an interface between website providers and advertisers where companies manage their online ads.
Google's ad-brokering business made up 13 percent of parent company Alphabet's revenues of nearly $183 billion last year. "The authority found that Google has granted preferential treatment to its own technologies offered under the Google Ad Manager brand," it said.
Google acquired advertising specialist DoubleClick in 2009 then ran a platform for advertising placements called DoubleClick for Publishers under the Google brand. Many large online publishers and publishers use the platform to offer ad space for sale.
The companies complained that Google customers were given an advantage in the actual allocation of advertising space at the Google Ad Exchange (AdX) ad auction house. In some cases, Google customers also had access to information about rival bids.
Its practices were "particularly serious" because those placed at a disadvantage include press associations whose economic model has already suffered serious attrition due to falling numbers of newspaper subscriptions, the regulator said.
