Google Fined Nearly $1.7 Billion For Ad Practices That Violated European Antitrust Laws (washingtonpost.com)

European regulators on Wednesday slapped Google with a roughly $1.7 billion fine on charges that its advertising practices violated local antitrust laws, marking the third time in as many years that the region's watchdogs have penalized the U.S. tech giant for harming competition and consumers. The Washington Post: Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's top competition commissioner, announced the punishment at a news conference, accusing Google of engaging in "illegal practices" in a bid to "cement its dominant market position" in the search and advertising markets. The new penalty adds to Google's costly headaches in Europe, where Vestager now has fined the tech giant more than $9 billion in total for a series of antitrust violations. Her actions stand in stark contrast to the United States, where regulators -- facing a flood of complaints that big tech companies have become too big and powerful -- have not brought a single antitrust case against Google or any of its peers in recent years, reflecting a widening transatlantic schism over Silicon Valley and its business practices.

Comments

Re:How much did Google make off those ads?

[AmiMoJo]

The fine is calculated as the loss to other companies and economies from their actions, while also considering their ability to pay. The fine is just the first stage though; if they don't stop doing it there will be further fines and even legal action against individuals.