After Google contested the decision, the second-highest court in the European Union ruled on Wednesday that the authorities’ fine of 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) should be overturned.
This lawsuit began in 2019 when Alphabet-owned Google was accused of abusing its market dominance in regard to a product called AdSense for Search by the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU.
This program gave website owners the ability to insert advertisements within their own pages’ search results.
Through its role as a middleman, Google enables advertisers to place search engine advertising on websites owned by third parties.
The Commission claimed that Google had abused its market dominance by including several restrictive conditions in agreements with other websites, so preventing competitors from running their search advertisements on these websites.
At that time, Google was penalised 1.49 billion euros by the Commission. Google filed an appeal, taking the matter to the General Court of the European Union.
Source (CNBC)
