BRUSSELS—Alphabet’s Google was fined €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) by the European Union for limiting how some websites could display ads sold by its rivals, the tech giant’s third antitrust penalty from the bloc since 2017.
Wednesday’s decision, which is smaller than the total of €6.76 billion ($7.67 billion) levied against Google in two previous decisions, is the last among formal charges the EU’s antitrust regulator has so far filed against the tech giant, drawing to a close at least one part of the nearly decadelong investigation into the company.
The fine deals with abusing the dominance of its search engine to block competitors in the niche market of selling text ads on the search results that appear on third-party websites.
罚款是因为谷歌滥用其垄断的搜索引擎以屏蔽竞争对手通过搜索结果在利基市场指向第三方网站的文字销售广告
It doesn’t come with a specific order to change Google’s business practices because the commission says Google ended the last type of anticompetitive behavior at issue in the case shortly after charges were filed nearly three years ago.
“Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anticompetitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites,” said Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief. “This is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” she added.
