The EU fines Google $3.5 billion and demands changes in digital advertising
The European Union fined Google almost $3 billion (US$3.5 billion) and ordered it to stop favoring its own advertising technology services. The move could further escalate tensions with US President Donald Trump.
The European Commission said on Friday that Google had abused its dominance by giving its own advertising exchanges a competitive advantage over its rivals and that it must end such practices.
“When markets fail, public institutions must act to prevent the dominant players from abusing their power,” EU antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera said in a statement. True freedom implies a level playing field, where everyone competes on an equal footing and citizens have a genuine right to choose.
The company immediately pledged to appeal. Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs at Google, said the measure imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will harm thousands of European companies by making profitability difficult for them.
The EU’s punishment comes at a tense time for EU-US trade relations, with Trump repeatedly mocking the bloc’s efforts to rein in the Silicon Valley giants. Although Google faces global antitrust scrutiny, it gained some relief this week when a U.S. judge ruled that it would not be necessary to dismantle its search business to address the damages alleged by the Justice Department.
However, Google’s advertising technology operations also remain under threat in the US. The Justice Department is expected to submit proposals for a settlement on Friday, ahead of a hearing on the proposals on Sept. The department had previously suggested forcing Google to divest its Ad Manager platform to address the alleged anti-competitive risks.
The EU warned Google in 2023 that it had abused its dominance in advertising technology to harm online publishers. At the time, the Brussels-based Commission said Google had prioritised its own advertising exchange programme over its competitors and had strengthened its central role in the advertising technology supply chain.
Ribera’s predecessor, Margrethe Vestager, then warned that only a mandatory “deinvestment” of a part of his business would solve the problems. The Danish woman had spent a decade in Brussels, where she fined Google more than 8 billion in three different cases, although one sanction was overturned and another reduced by EU judges.
