Google has been fined €1.49 billion by the EU for abusive practices in online advertising.
The European Commission says Google has abused its market dominance by imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites.
This in turn has stopped Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites.
Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites.
This is illegal under #EUantitrust rules.
Read more → https://t.co/wGnxS9s4Rn pic.twitter.com/ozLrWUHr72— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) March 20, 2019
The EU says Google had been in breach of EU antitrust laws for over 10 years.
It's the third time the Commsission has fined Google in three years:
In June 2017, they were fined €2.42 billion for abusing its dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to Google's own comparison shopping service.
Later in July 2018, Google was issued with a €4.34 billion fine for illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices to strengthen the dominance of Google's search engine.
