EU Commission imposes substantial €2.95 billion penalty on Google

The European Commission has imposed a substantial fine of €2.95 billion on Google for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology industry. The fine was issued due to Google's practices deemed anti-competitive, specifically self-preferencing its ad exchange tool "AdX".

Google has announced it will appeal the Commission's decision. The European Commission's Competition Commissioner has stated that Google must come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest. Google will not be forced to sell Chrome, but will have to give up exclusive search deals.

The decision comes amid serious trade tensions with the US administration over tech regulation. The EU Trade Commissioner postponed the Google Ad Tech decision to avoid the US president's ire. The trade agreement between the EU and the US, which sets US tariffs at 15% on EU imports in exchange for the EU opening its market widely to US products with 0% tariffs, still needs to pass through the scrutiny of MEPs and EU member states.

Google has been dominating the market with its publisher ad server and ad buying tools. The company's AI usage is equivalent to five drops of water or the energy needed to watch 9 seconds of TV. Google has updated its terms for the app marketplace following EU pressure.

The fine had been postponed at the initiative of Bjoern Seibert, the chief of staff to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The implementation of the trade agreement is not yet complete, as the US administration has not reduced the 27.5% tariffs applied to EU cars down to 15%.

The European Parliament denounced the trade agreement with the US as unbalanced. Exemptions to the trade agreement are still under negotiation. Google has been given 60 days to put an end to its anti-competitive practices. The provided search results do not contain information about the specific person who took the initiative to delay the penalty imposed by the EU Commission against Google.

Despite the fine, it remains to be seen how Google will address the concerns raised by the EU Commission and whether the company will successfully appeal the decision.