(MENAFN- Asia Times) Growing discontent with what many view as monopolistic practices on the part of Google has yet to bare teeth in the tech giant's home country, but in Europe the bites just keep on coming.
On Wednesday, Google was fined 1.49 billion euros after it was found to have engaged in anti-competitive practices. That brings the grand total of antitrust fines slapped on parent company Alphabet's search unit to more than 8 billion euros.
Despite the higher than expected fine, Alphabet shares were up more than 2% on Wednesday on the launch of Google's new streaming game service.
The latest antitrust case centered on Google's AdSense product, and its 'misuse of its dominant position in the market for the brokering of online search adverts,' a statement from the European Commission said.
'The misconduct lasted over 10 years and denied other companies the possibility to compete on the merits and to innovate - and consumers the benefits of competition,' the release went on.
Google's fight with the EU has already dragged on for a decade, and in advance of this new fine, Google announced earlier in the week that they will change their Android platform to explicitly give users the choice to choose third-party web browsers and search engines.
MENAFN2103201901590000ID1098284493
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.