software EU court rules against Google for billion-euro fine

After last week's defeat, Google has now scored a victory in court. It is unlikely to be the last trial between the EU Commission and the tech giant.

In the dispute over a competition fine of 1.49 billion euros, Google has won a victory before the EU court. The EU Commission had not sufficiently proven that Google had abused its dominant position in search engine advertising in the "AdSense for Search" service, the judges ruled. The ruling can still be appealed before the European Court of Justice.

With "AdSense for Search", other websites can integrate Google search masks and provide services in return. Financially, "AdSense" is more of a niche product for Google. According to the tech giant, it had already made changes to the model before the EU Commission's decision.

Fine null and void

Although the judges confirmed most of the EU Commission's findings, they declared the fine null and void. The Brussels authority had not taken all relevant circumstances into account when determining whether Google's contractual clauses were abusive.

Google had already suffered a defeat before the ECJ last week: The judges confirmed a fine of 2.4 billion euros imposed by the EU Commission in connection with Google's price comparison service Google Shopping. The tech giant had abused its market power by favoring the results of its own price comparison service over those of its competitors on the page for general search results. Google had already made changes here before the ruling.

Brussels has been struggling for years to prevent distortions of competition by the giant tech companies. In addition to laws such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is intended to combat the dominance of large online platforms, the EU Commission's competition watchdogs have imposed several fines on Google in recent years, totaling a good eight billion euros. Although the company quickly digested these with its booming online advertising business, in some cases it had to change its business model.

SDA