The European Commission imposed on Friday a fine of €2.95 billion ($3.47 billion) on search engine Google over abusive online advertising practices.
“Google abused its dominant position in ad-tech harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This behavior is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said.
The commission ordered the US tech giant to end its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.
The company said the fine was “unjustified” and that it would appeal, labeling the decision “wrong.”
“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.
This is the third fine announced against Google within a week, with a US federal jury ordering on Tuesday the tech giant to pay $425 million US dollars for collecting information from smartphones despite users even when people opted for privacy settings.
France’s data protection authority meanwhile fined Google €325 million on the same day for failing to respect the law on internet cookies.
The fine comes despite US President Donald Trump’s threats to sanction the EU should the 27-country bloc issue regulations which affect big US tech companies, with the EU’s trade head pausing the sanctions, seemingly amid fear of US retaliation.