Another Antitrust Fine For Google: It Is Worth $1.7 Billion This Time

The European Union (EU) regulators have reportedly hit Google with a $1.7 billion antitrust fine. On March 20, Margrethe Vestager as an antitrust commissioner of the EU said that the company had forced its AdSense business customers to commit not to accepting advertising from search engines of Google’s rivalries.

This is the third time Google received an antitrust fine from the EU. In July 2018, the company was hit the $5 billion fine which is known as the record-breaking one in its history of development. At that time, it allegedly abused its dominance in the market. In September 2017, the fine the company had to bear was $2.7 billion when it was accused of manipulating search results on Google Shopping. Up to now, Google has appealed these two cases.

Along with the third penalty, the EU’s antitrust fine for Google will reach up to $9.3 billion. The first two fines were higher than the third one because this time, the company proactively contacted the EU to adjust its policies of AdSense after receiving the agency’s announcement on its 2016 case.

Margrethe Vestager serves as the EU Competition Commissioner.

In 2006, it sold the AdSense for Search products to its customers for the first time. And therefore, newspapers and retailers could put a search box from Google on their websites. When the search box was used by visitors, the company would show advertisements and the commission received from this would be shared by both Google and the owners of websites.

One notable thing is Google required its customers to sign a contract saying that they wouldn’t run search engines from its rivalries on their own sites. Three years later, the company agreed to let these websites run other search engines along with Google’s one; however, they must ensure Google’s prominent position. In 2016, while the EU made an announcement on its case, Google decided to remove all of these terms.

Although AdSense earned a not-small amount for Google, it was never among the significant parts of the tech giant’s revenue. Bloomberg revealed that AdSense gained lower than 20% of the whole income of the company in 2015. The percentage has kept reducing since that time.

Vestager also pointed out that Google has allowed its users to choose any preferred browser as well as a search engine on their mobile platform.