EU court annuls €1.5b fine for Google

Google will not be required to pay the nearly 1.5 billion euro fine imposed by the European Commission, according to a ruling by the European Union's General Court on Wednesday, reported Xinhua.

The court stated that the Commission "failed to consider all the relevant circumstances" regarding the contract clauses it had labeled as abusive.

The case revolves around Google's advertising platform AdSense, which was launched in 2003 and included an online ad intermediation service called AdSense for Search (AFS). To use AFS, publishers could negotiate contracts with Google that contained clauses restricting or prohibiting ads from competing services.

In 2016, the Commission initiated an investigation into these clauses, leading Google to remove or revise them by September 2016. However, in March 2019, the Commission imposed a fine of nearly 1.5 billion euros, claiming Google had violated regulations from January 2003 to September 2016.

While the court upheld most of the Commission's conclusions, it found that the Commission did not adequately prove that the clauses in question stifled innovation, strengthened Google's dominance in national markets, or harmed consumers.