Google fined for abusing its ‘dominant’ online ads position

Google is being fined $268 million by France’s antitrust watchdog for abusing its ‘dominant’ position in online advertising.

The search engine giant is also promising to overhaul the way its platform is used for buying and selling digital ads, at least in France, which could have repercussions on its ongoing legal fights with regulators elsewhere in Europe, the U.S. and around the world.

Google’s advertising practices have harmed its competitors along with publishers of mobile websites and applications, the French Competition Authority said Monday. The authority said it is the responsibility of a company with a dominant market position to avoid unfairly undermining its competition.

Mountain View-based Google did not dispute the facts and opted to settle after proposing some changes, according to a prepared statement from the Competition Authority.

The settlement might serve as a roadmap for other governments that are scrutinizing Google’s market power, said Douglas Melamed, a Stanford University law professor.

“I imagine that Google’s decision to settle reflected a judgment that it could live with those terms even if it were forced upon it by other jurisdictions,” he said.

The head of the authority, Isabelle de Silva, said the decision was unprecedented in the way that it delved into the complex algorithmic auctions that power Google’s business selling online display ads.

The fine, along with Google’s commitment to changing its practices, “will make it possible to re-establish a level playing field for all players, and the ability for publishers to make the most of their advertising space,” de Silva said.

After tests in the months ahead, changes will be deployed more broadly, some of them globally, Gomri said.

She didn’t specify which changes would apply outside of France.