{"id":406119,"date":"2025-09-07T20:40:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T20:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/406119\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T20:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T20:40:18","slug":"transatlantic-twofer-in-googles-display-ads-case-eu-levies-e2-95b-fine-doj-proposes-breakup-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/406119\/","title":{"rendered":"Transatlantic Twofer in Google’s Display-Ads Case: EU Levies \u20ac2.95B Fine, DOJ Proposes Breakup"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Google seems to have escaped the US government\u2019s search-antitrust lawsuit with a surprisingly light punishment<\/a>, but its display-ads business looks in more legal trouble than ever after taking two hits from opposite sides of the Atlantic on Friday.<\/p>\n

First, the European Commission hit Google with a \u20ac2.95 billion fine and said that this penalty was only part of stopping Google\u2019s abuses of power in the market for ads shown on web pages.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of Google’s illegal practices, advertisers faced higher marketing costs, which they likely passed on to European consumers in the form of higher prices for products and services,\u201d EC executive vice president Teresa Ribera said in a statement on Friday<\/a>. \u201cGoogle’s tactics also reduced revenues for publishers, which may have led to lower service quality and higher subscription costs for consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ribera noted that this fine was increased because Google broke EU antitrust rules three times before in cases that each resulted in a penalty of one billion euros or more. The EC fined Google \u20ac2.42 billion in 2017<\/a> for favoring its own comparison shopping service, \u20ac4.34 billion in 2018<\/a> for using its control of Android to favor its own search engine, and\u00a0 \u20ac1.49 billion in 2019<\/a> for suppressing competitors in online search advertising.<\/p>\n

In June 2023, the EC found Google guilty of abusing its power in both the publisher and advertiser sides of the display-ads market and\u00a0suggested<\/a> that only a forced divestiture of some of its business units would end that threat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ribera picked up on that, writing that \u201ca mere fine in this case is not enough to deliver real and tangible solutions for the market and to protect our consumers.\u201d The EC has given Google 60 days to come up with a plan to end its illegal conduct and its \u201cinherent conflicts of interest.” That will probably have to involve selling off some of its display-ads businesses.<\/p>\n

Wrote Ribera: \u201cAt this stage, it appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Google Must Promptly and Fully Divest’<\/p>\n

Later Friday, the Department of Justice filed its own proposal to force a breakup of Google\u2019s display-ads business. That came after an April ruling<\/a> from Judge Leonie Brinkema for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which said \u201cGoogle has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 61-page \u201cProposed Final Judgment\u201d<\/a> lays out a plan to terminate Google\u2019s illegal practices, restore competition, ensure that it can\u2019t resume those practices, and even claw back some of the profits that resulted from these practices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Step one would be a forced sale of AdX, the ad exchange that Brinkema said holds more than half of the market for the near-real-time auctions among advertisers that generate bids for spaces on web pages\u2014one side of the programmatic advertising system<\/a> that fuels advertising on most sites, this one included.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cGoogle must promptly and fully divest AdX, to a buyer approved in writing by the Plaintiffs in their sole discretion (the AdX Acquirer), subject to terms that the Court and Plaintiffs approve,\u201d according to the proposal, which also says Google could not return to the ad-exchange market for five years.<\/p>\n

Google could keep its business at the other side of the programmatic industry, publisher ad servers that alert advertisers of space available on sites\u2013where Google holds about 90% of that market. But it would have to publish the auction logic behind the product formerly called DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) under an open-source license for use in auctions to be run by \u201ca neutral, third-party\u201d administrator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposal reserves the right to force a divestiture of the rest of DFP if necessary to open this market. (Google retired the AdX and DFP names and now brands its entire display-ads tech stack as Google Ad Manager<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The DOJ proposal further requires Google to refrain from certain self-dealing practices and implement data-portability and interoperability measures to ease competition in the display-ads business. And it requires the company to hand over 50% of the profits generated by AdX and DFP, until the sale of either.<\/p>\n

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Those funds would be used to cover the costs of running those open-source auctions, defray publishers’ costs of switching from DFP to competing publisher ad servers, or \u201cfor any other remedial purpose ordered by the Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘An Unjustified Fine’<\/p>\n

Google objected to both the EC and DOJ actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European Commission’s decision about our ad tech services is wrong and we will appeal,\u201d Lee-Anne Mulholland, VP and global head of regulatory affairs, said in a post on Friday<\/a>. \u201cIt imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, Google had proposed its own set of remedies<\/a> that would not see ad units sold off but would instead \u201cmake it even easier for publishers to use Google Ad Manager with other ad tech providers, while minimizing disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

A trade association representing news publishers\u2014who have complained about Google keeping so much of the money made by display ads and have grown uneasy over how Google\u2019s \u201cAI Overview\u201d search results seem to be reducing click-throughs to sites<\/a>\u2014endorsed forcing Google out of parts of that industry in a statement reacting to the EC fine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle must be held accountable for decades of abuse of its market power,\u201d Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News\/Media Alliance, said in the statement<\/a>, which nodded to Republican complaints of unfair content moderation by large online platforms<\/a>. \u201cGoogle\u2019s monopolistic tactics in the advertising market have starved content creators of revenue, forced users to pay higher prices, and silenced too many Americans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

About Rob Pegoraro<\/p>\n

\n Contributor\n <\/p>\n

\"Rob<\/p>\n

Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He\u2019s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google\u2019s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook\u2019s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.<\/p>\n

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