The French Competition

Authority

(

Autorité de la concurrence

; the body that regulates competition in the French country) has imposed a fine of

220 million euros

on Google for abuse of position in the online advertising sector.

The company has not disputed the facts and has proposed various compromises.

In particular, the search engine is accused of abusing its dominant position in the

advertising server

market

for website publishers and mobile applications.

The investigation began after complaints raised by the groups News Corp, Le Figaro and Rossel La Voix.

"The Authority has found that Google granted preferential treatment to its proprietary technologies offered under the Google Ad Manager brand," the organization explains in a statement.

This occurred "both in terms of the operation of the DFP ad server" and in its SSP AdX platform, which organizes the auction process that allows publishers to sell impressions.

It is not the first time that Google has received a similar sanction in France, since in December 2019 the country already imposed a fine of 150 million euros for this reason (on that occasion, for Google Ads).

The company was also fined 100 million euros recently in Italy for abuse of a dominant position on Google Play.

In any event, none comes close to the record fine of 2.42 billion euros imposed by the European Union in 2017.

Google has proposed a series of commitments that have been accepted by the French antitrust authority.

These, they say, will change the way both services work.

According to

Isabelle de Silva

, president of the organization, the decision has "a very particular meaning", since it represents "the first decision in the world" that investigates "complex algorithmic auction processes by which online advertising works."

De Silva also criticized

the "very serious" practices

of Google, which penalized competition "in the emerging market for online advertising" and allowed the search engine not only to preserve its dominant position, but also to increase it.

Likewise, the directive celebrated that this sanction and the agreements reached "will allow to reestablish a fair playing field for all participants", in addition to giving publishers the option of "making the most of their advertising spaces".

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • France

  • European Union

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  • economy

  • Google

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