France Hits Google with $166M Antitrust Fine for Murky and Conflicting Promotion Rules

Big tech giants are making use of all tactics they can to make money without alarming users. It might be secretly collecting data or using their monopoly in markets to gather a user base. Google is not alien to this concept and has been slapped time and again for murky promotion rules imposing Google antitrust fines over and over again. However, as a diverse company, it is least affected by them and continues to prosper.

Another Fine Imposed by France

One of the countries with very strict rules for the fair competition in France, And, it does not sit back even if these are big giants from American soil dominating the market. This time, their competition watchdog slapped Google with $166 million in fines for violating the rules of the land. It was found that Google had been using its dominant position to abuse the online advertising market and online search. In the advocacy of fair business, France has taken this step.

Google has been repeatedly notified and condemned for its abuse of power, but the tech giant is simply unaware of the consequences as the fines are too small to make any major problem for its growth. Given that such investigations often go long and with bureaucrats from either side debating or presenting pieces of evidence, the outcome is time-consuming, but the time any result is reached, the company has already recovered from its losses.

Today’s Decision was a Big Deal

Following a major length investigation into the online ad sector, the competition authority announced today that it has sanctioned Google for adopting as they describe it as opaque and difficult to understand operating rules for its ad platform. This is Google Ads. Then, they found that the company had been using its monopoly to apply them in an unfair and random manner.

Although through the use of various forms and terms and conditions companies try their best to secure all kinds of monopoly behavior, promotion rules, this Google antitrust investigation was a big deal for being in the favor of the ethics. Google antitrust claims have been made and sanctioned have been posed by other countries as well, not just France.

In recent times as the world is waking up to monitoring and scrutinizing unethical behavior much more stringently, even the biggest of the companies like Apple and Google are finding it difficult, and at times, impossible to find their way around.

The watchdog has, in addition, ordered Google to clarify all its rules and procedures. And, also put in place measures to detect violations of these procedures. This is a hard deal when a survey in the UK has found that Google should be broken up simply because of its enormousness.

Conclusion

In France, where Google holds 90% of online search and 80% of the market, such sanctions are very essential to allow the growth of fair businesses. As of now, Google antitrust has found that its rules are not based on any precise and stable definition, which gives Google full latitude to interpret them according to situations.