France Fines Google for Mistreating Search Advertisers--Update
December 20 2019 - 06:42AM
Dow Jones News
By Sam Schechner
PARIS -- France's competition authority fined Alphabet Inc.'s
Google EUR150 million ($167 million) for unfairly suspending
advertisers that placed allegedly deceptive ads, the latest in a
series of antitrust probes and decisions against big tech firms in
both Europe and the U.S.
The French authority on Friday said Google abused its dominance
of the market for ads displayed in search results by suspending
those advertisers in France in a random and unpredictable fashion,
imposing significant losses on those sites.
The authority ordered Google to pay a fine and to stop the
"brutal and unjustified" suspensions of search advertisers and to
clarify its rules for advertisers. The authority also said that
Google should have a system to alert advertisers when they risk
suspension from its ads system.
"Google has the power of life or death for certain companies
that live by these advertisements," said Isabelle de Silva,
chairman of France's competition authority, at a press conference
to announce the decision. "We don't contest Google's right to
impose rules. But the rules must be clear and imposed equally to
all advertisers."
Google said it would appeal the ruling in court, adding that it
the company stands by its decisions to remove what it called
"exploitative and abusive ads" from its platform.
The case stems originally from a four-year-old complaint from
Gibmedia, a publisher of weather-forecast websites, which said that
Google had unfairly blocked it from buying ads.
Google said Friday that Gibmedia had been running ads for
"websites that deceived people into paying for service" and that
Google had given up advertising revenue to protect consumers from
harm.
The French case comes as big tech companies, including Google
and Facebook Inc., face growing antitrust scrutiny on both sides of
the Atlantic.
In the U.S., both the Justice Department and Federal Trade
Commission, as well as many U.S. states, are probing the companies.
Last month, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim
told an antitrust conference that his department is how amassing
data can affect market power, including whether amassing data
allows companies to improve their systems in ways that creates a
"feedback loop that protects market power."
In Europe, the European Union's competition authority, which has
issued fines to Google in three cases in recent years, says it is
also in the early stages of probes into how Google and Facebook
gather and monetize data about their users for advertising
purposes.
National authorities are also picking up their interest, too. In
a report issued Wednesday, the U.K.'s Competition and Markets
Authority floated several potential ideas for new regulations that
could rein in big tech companies -- for instance mandating that
Google share usage data from its search engine -- specifically the
queries users type in and which results they click on.
"'Big' is not necessarily 'bad,'" the CMA said, but added that
it is concerned that Google and Facebook "may have become
entrenched with negative consequences for the people and businesses
who use these services every day."
In France as well, Ms. de Silva said that her authority has
several other cases pending in the tech space, including regarding
Facebook Inc., and is in the process of setting up a digital unit
to investigate tech cases.
Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 20, 2019 06:27 ET (11:27 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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