BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union regulators have hit Google with a 1.49 billion euro ($1.68 billion) fine for abusing its dominant role in online advertising. “Today’s decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform,” Vestager said. The commission found that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, breached EU antitrust rules by imposing restrictive clauses in contracts with websites that used AdSense, preventing Google rivals from placing their ads on these sites. Google “prevented its rivals from having a chance to innovate and to compete in the market on their merits,” Vestager said. Microsoft filed an EU antitrust complaint about the service in 2009 and the EU Commission formally launched its probe in 2016, although it said at the time that Google had already made some changes to allow affected customers more freedom to show competing ads.

Source: Huffington Post March 20, 2019 12:33 UTC