Google has been issued a 1.49 billion euro (£1.27 billion) fine by the European Commission for alleged illegal practices in search advertising.
The company is accused of breaching EU antitrust laws between 2006 and 2016, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said in Brussels on Wednesday morning.
READ MORE: Scotland's economy outperforms the UK, figures reveal
The third @Google case: @Google is fined €1,49bn for illegal practices in search advertising brokering to cement its dominant market position. They shouldn’t do that – it denied consumers choice, innovative products and fair prices.
— Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) March 20, 2019
“Google has engaged in illegal practices when it comes to their search advertising brokering in order to cement its dominant market position,” she said.
The fine is the third antitrust fine the tech giant has been issued by the European Commission.
There was a record 4.34 billion euro (£3.9 billion) fine last year over restrictions on mobile phone manufacturers using Android to drive internet traffic to Google’s own search engine.
In June 2017, it was fined 2.42 billion euro (£2.1 billion) for its comparison shopping service.
In response to last year’s fine, Google said it would begin asking Android users in Europe about their preferred search engine and web browser apps after being accused of abusing its position by EU competition authorities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article