Google is to change the way it operates its advertising business, after the internet giant was slapped with a €220m (£189m) fine by French competition regulators for abusing its dominant position.
Publishing the decision, the Autorité de la concurrence ruled that Google granted preferential treatment to its own proprietary technologies offered under its Google Ad Manager brand.
This was “to the detriment of its competitors and publishers,” the French regulator said.
Isabelle de Silva, the Autorité de la concurrence president, said the ruling was significant because it was “the first decision in the world to look into complex algorithmic auctions processes through which online display advertising works”.
She went on:
The investigation was originally triggered by a complaint lodged by News Corp Inc, Le Figaro group and the Rossel La Voix group.
Responding to the ruling, Google said it plans to make some “changes to our ad technology.”
Writing in a blog published yesterday, Maria Gomri, legal director at Google France, noted the company was “committed to working proactively with regulators everywhere to make improvements to our products”.
“That’s why, as part of an overall resolution of the FCA’s investigation, we have agreed on a set of commitments to make it easier for publishers to make use of data and use our tools with other ad technologies,” she wrote.
“We will be testing and developing these changes over the coming months before rolling them out more broadly, including some globally.” ®
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