On September 18th local time, the second highest court in Europe, the General Court of the European Union, announced the revocation of the € 1.49 billion (approximately RMB 11.8 billion) antitrust fine imposed on Google five years ago.
Screenshot of the EU General Court
Why was the fine canceled for the center?
In March 2019, the European Commission, the EU antitrust agency, imposed an antitrust fine of 1.49 billion euros on Google AdSense advertising service. The European Commission stated in a statement at the time that "Google abused its market dominance by imposing restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites to prevent Google's competitors from placing search ads on these websites
But Google expressed dissatisfaction with this punishment and appealed.
Previously, according to the European Commission, Google protected itself from competitive pressure by implementing anti competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites. According to the EU's antitrust regulations, this is illegal. This misconduct has lasted for over 10 years, preventing other companies from competing and innovating fairly, and also preventing consumers from enjoying the benefits of competition.
The EU General Court made a ruling today, upholding most of the European Commission's assessment but revoking the decision to impose a fine of nearly 1.5 billion euros on Google. The EU General Court believes that the European Commission did not take into account all relevant circumstances when evaluating the duration of the contract terms that Google was deemed unfair.
The EU investigation into Google AdSense service began in 2016 and is the third antitrust lawsuit Google has faced in the EU. Google has appealed against the previous antitrust fines imposed on Google Shopping and Android. The total amount of fines for these three antitrust cases reached 8.25 billion euros.
[align center] Holding two weapons, the EU continues to take action
The EU has recently taken frequent actions against tech giants for their monopolistic practices.
Last week, Apple and Google lost in the two largest competition cases in EU history. Apple has failed the 13 billion euros (14.4 billion US dollars) Irish tax bill demanded by the European Union, and Google faces a 2.4 billion euro fine for abusing its search market power.
In addition, Meta Platforms is facing a huge fine from the European Union for allegedly monopolizing the classified advertising market. The EU may make a decision as early as next month.
In fact, the European Union has passed two laws in order to combat tech giants, namely the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, which are better known for their acronyms DMA and DSA.
Among them, the Digital Market Law, which came into effect on March 7, 2024, based on decades of antitrust enforcement experience, has compiled a broad list of "should do" and "should not do" items for large technology companies, with the aim of curbing their abusive behavior before it occurs.
The Digital Services Law, which officially came into effect on August 25, 2024, sets content rules for social media platforms, online markets, and app stores. The regulation forces these platform operators to crack down on misinformation and offensive content, such as hate speech, terrorism propaganda, and advertisements for unsafe products.
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