Google hit with €1.5bn fine from EU over advertising

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Alphabet’s Google remains a dominant force in online advertising

Google has been hit with a €1.49bn (£1.28bn) fine from the EU for blocking rival online search advertisers. In 2006, Google started to include “exclusivity clauses” in contracts which stopped publishers from placing ads from Google rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo on search pages, the Commission said. Publishers also needed to get written permission from Google before making any changes to how rival ads were displayed, letting Google control “how attractive, and therefore clicked on, competing search adverts could be”, the Commission said.

Source: www.bbc.com