Europe’s second highest court fined Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, $ 4.13 billion (€ 4.125 billion) for using its Android mobile operating system to thwart rivals, setting a precedent on which other regulators they can build.
Reuters:
It’s a record fine for an antitrust violation. The EU antitrust authority inflicted a total of € 8.25 billion in antitrust penalties on the world’s most popular internet search engine in three investigations dating back more than a decade.
This is the second court defeat for Google to lose its challenge due to a € 2.42 billion ($ 2.42 billion) fine last year, the first of three cases.
The Court agreed with the Commission’s assessment that the iPhone manufacturer Apple was not in the same market and therefore could not constitute a competitive constraint vis-à-vis Android.
The court’s support could strengthen EU antitrust scrutiny in its investigation into Apple’s business practices in the music streaming market where the regulator says the company dominates.
MacDailyNews takes: The other big problem with Google is its dominance over online advertising. This is what, from the perspective of a publisher trying to survive this ongoing situation, needs to be corrected so that competition can be reintroduced into the market, making online publishing viable again.
Google has been carefully identified by multiple countries as an abusive monopoly that has used its power and market dominance to unfairly control the ad technology market, making sure they are the ones who get back 50% of every advertising dollar spent online. – Rich Hein, CMSWire, April 22, 2022
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]