- The French Competition Authority said Google has agreed to end some of its self-preferencing practices in the automated online advertising business.
- The investigation came after News Corp, newspaper Le Figaro and the press group Rossel filed a complaint against Google.
- Regulators across Europe are clamping down on the major U.S. tech giants.
France’s competition watchdog fined Google 220 million euros ($268 million) on Monday for abusing its market power in the online advertising industry.
The French Competition Authority said Google had unfairly sent business to its own services and discriminated against the competition. Google has agreed to pay the fine and end some of its self-preferencing practices, the watchdog said.
The investigation found that Google gave preferential treatment to its DFP advertising server, which allows publishers of sites and applications to sell their advertising space, and its SSP AdX listing platform, which organizes auction processes and allows publishers to sell their “impressions” or advertising inventory to advertisers. Google’s rivals and publishers suffered as a result, the regulator said.
Isabelle de Silva, president of the French Competition Authority, said in a statement the decision is the first in the world “to look at the complex algorithmic auction processes by which online advertising ‘display’ operates.”
She added…
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