European authorities on Wednesday fined Google 1.5 billion euros for antitrust violations in the online advertising market, continuing its efforts to rein in the world’s biggest technology companies. The fine, worth about $1.7 billion, is the third against Google by the European Union since 2017, reinforcing the region’s position as the world’s most aggressive watchdog of an industry with an increasingly powerful role in society and the global economy. The regulators said Google had violated antitrust rules by imposing unfair terms on companies that used its search bar on their websites in Europe.
Europe’s regulatory approach was once criticised as unfairly targeting technology companies from the United States, but is now viewed as a potential global model as governments question the influence of Silicon Valley. Europe is at the forefront of a broad debate about the role of tech platforms like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, and whether their size and power hurts competition.
In the United States, where policymakers have taken a largely hands-off approach to the companies, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, has made breaking up Google and other tech giants a priority in her Democratic presidential campaign. This week, Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and chairman of the House subcommittee on antitrust, commercial and administrative law, called for a federal investigation of Facebook.
New York Times
