Introduction On 20 December 2019, the French Competition Authority (Autorité de la Concurrence) (the “Authority”) announced its finding that Google had abused its dominant position in the French market for search advertising through the operating rules applied by Google Ads (previously known as AdWords), its auction-based advertising system. The Authority fined Google €150 million and has required Google to make a number of changes aimed at clarifying Google Ads’ rules and procedures which it deemed to be opaque, difficult to understand, and applied in an unfair and random manner (the “Decision”). [1] Overview of the decision The complainant On 6 March 2015, Gibmedia, which operates “paid content websites” [2] that include weather forecasts, business data, and telephone information, filed a
Share on
|
|
The French Competition Authority rules that a Big Tech firm had abused its dominant position in the national market for search advertising through its auction-based advertising system (Google)
Access to this article is restricted to subscribers
Already Subscribed? Sign-in
Access to this article is restricted to subscribers.
Read one article for free
Sign-up to read this article for free and discover our services.
