France’s competition watchdog fined Google 220 million euros ($268 million) on Monday for abusing its dominant position in online advertising and succeeded at forcing the search giant to stop some of its self-preferencing practices.
The French Competition Authority said the tech giant’s ad practices, which unfairly pushed businesses to its own services, hurt Google’s competitors, along with publishers of sites and applications that sell their advertising space.
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Google said that it will be making a number of changes to its advertising technology, according to a press release on Monday, after working on an agreement with the French authorities over the past two years.
“These very serious practices have penalized competition in the emerging online advertising market and have enabled Google not only to preserve but also to increase its dominant position,” said Isabelle de Silva, president of the French Competition Authority.
“This sanction and these commitments will make it possible to reestablish a level playing field for all actors and the ability of publishers to make the most of their advertising spaces,” she said.
The French authorities started looking into Google’s ad practice after News Corp, an American publisher, French newspaper Le Figaro, and Rossell, a Belgian press group, filed a complaint against the search giant.
European authorities have engaged in a flurry of antitrust action against Big Tech companies recently.
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Last week, competition regulators in the United Kingdom and Europe announced they were investigating Facebook for antitrust concerns, and the European Commission has launched investigations into Microsoft, Amazon, and Google in the past few years.
