Google fined EUR 1.49 billion for third EU antitrust abuse

Google fined EUR 1.49 billion for third EU antitrust abuse

The European Commission has hit Google with a third fine for abuse of dominance in two years.

The Commission found that Google abused its dominant position in online search advertising intermediation through restrictive contractual terms with websites which prevented its rivals from placing their search advertisements on those sites.

The Commission found that Google was dominant in the online search intermediation market in the EEA since at least 2006 when Google imposed an exclusivity obligation banning publishers from placing search adverts from competitors on their results pages.  The Commission has further found that from March 2009 the practices were replaced with ‘relaxed exclusivity’ where Google aimed to secure for itself the most valuable positions.

Google stopped the offending practices in July 2016 when the Commission issued is statement of objections.  The Commission has nevertheless required Google to cease the practices and to refrain from any measure that has the same or equivalent object or effect.

Set against the EUR 2.42 billion fine in 2017 in the Google comparison shopping case and the record fine of EUR 4.34 billion in 2018 in the Google Android operating system case, this is a third significant fine for Google. Commissioner Vestager noted that the misconduct lasted over 10 years and denied other companies the possibility to compete on the merits and to innovate, and consumers the benefits of competition.

When announcing the decision, the Commissioner also gave an update on other Google antitrust cases.  There are some developments that appear to be in a positive direction.  Of significance for the shopping case, June 2018 data showed that about 6% of clicks on results went to competitors but it now appears that has increased to around 40%.

Google has announced that it intends to provide a choice screen for Android users in Europe.  A choice screen remedy was used in the Microsoft commitments which brought to an end the Commission’s browser investigation in 2009. While the aim is to allow consumers to choose what browsers they want on their Android phone, it will face the challenge of potential consumer inertia which may default to Android.