French authorities fined Google €220 million (£189 million) for misusing its advertising dominance.

According to France’s competition commission, Google has been promoting its own online ad services at the expense of competitors.

Google Ad Manager, the company’s ad management software for major publications, gave Google AdX, the company’s own online ad marketplace. Google said that it will make adjustments to its ad business. The internet behemoth has promised to make its data and capabilities more accessible to publications. “Over the coming months, we’ll be testing and developing these modifications before rolling them out more generally, including some worldwide,” the business added.

Also, the EU fined Google €1.49 billion (£1.28 billion) for banning competitor internet search advertising in 2019.

According to the French data regulator, CNIL penalized €50 million (£44 million) for violating EU data protection regulations. In 2018, the European Commission fined Google a record of €4.34 billion (£3.9 billion) for exploiting its popularity. This came after a €2.42 billion punishment in 2017 for obstructing competitor shopping comparison websites.

According to the watchdog, Google Ad Manager gave AdX crucial data such as winning bidding rates, as well as privileged access to advertiser requests made through Google’s ad services.

Fraud advertisements by Google

Meanwhile, AdX communicated with the Ad Manager more efficiently than other advertising management platforms. Publishers depend on platforms to manage and sell advertising space.

Therefore, finance minister Bruno Le Maire of France said: “Google’s policies of favoring its own advertising technology have had an impact on journalistic organizations whose economic model is strongly reliant on ad income.

Following a combined complaint from News Corp, French news publishing firm Le Figaro, and Belgian press company Rossel, the French authorities initiated an inquiry in 2019.
It states that the judgment allows publishers to seek damages from Google.

“While we feel we provide useful services and compete on merits,” Maria Gomri, Google France’s legal director, said.