France's competition watchdog on Friday fined Google 150 million euros ($16...
) 150 million euros for abusing its dominant market position by applying opaque and unpredictable rules on its Google Ads advertising platform.
It is the first penalty imposed by the French antitrust watchdog against the U.S. tech company, which faces a growing number of investigations into its business practices on both sides of the Atlantic.The French regulator said it had found Google had a lack of objectivity and predictability in defining the rules on Google Ads, the gateway for advertisers that wish to appear in the sponsored section of search results.
“One of the great principles of competition law is that with great power comes great responsibility,” the head of the authority, Isabelle de Silva, said at a news conference.The authority’s investigation took four years and followed a complaint filed by Gibmedia, a French company that manages a range of websites offering weather forecasts, corporate data and directories.The regulator said that by changing its terms of use and rules at will, Google had abused its market power.
“We do not want these kinds of ads on our systems, so we suspended Gibmedia and gave up advertising revenue to protect consumers from harm,” Google said in statement.In September, Google agreed to pay close to 1 billion euros to French authorities to settle a fiscal fraud probe that began four years ago.
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