The European Union General Court broke ground in the ongoing legal tussle between Google and EU regulators as it overturned the Union's earlier decision to slap the tech giant with a fine of $1.5 billion for antitrust violations centers around its advertising practices. The ruling held on September 18, was the chief keystones of Google's ongoing battle with EU regulators.
At first, the huge fine was imposed by the European Commission in 2019 which charged Google with its AdSense for Search search engine for misconduct for restricting businesses from exchanging search ads with other companies. The Commission accused Google of breaking the antitrust law by in effect giving its customers the exclusive right to make other websites not to accept advertisements from rival competitors, hereby interrupting the full operation of free market competition. They are the one of the three antitrust charges that EU brought against Google, leading to the question though there are fines that are able to post more than $9 billion in the fiscal year.
Google indeed claimed that they were charged unfair fines and that nothing they did damaged the competition but rather, the sharing of their technology promoted competition and choice to the customers. The Judicial Court supported Google and held in their decision that the European Commission was unable to prove that Google's behavior, was in the real sense of damage of the competition. This Court's decision has de facto annulled the $1.5 billion fine, which turned out to be the victory company experienced among other global regulatory interrogations globally.
This decision may mean that the economy of technology and information sectors would now be open to regulation by the authorities after experiencing several confrontations between them and the technology companies that concerned issues like data protection and dominance in the market. The victory of Google over the European Commission is capable of strengthening other technology companies in confronting the decisions of the regulators, and thus, it might transform the dynamics of tech regulation and its enforcement in Europe and elsewhere.
Even after the win, Google has not yet solved all the legal problems that it is involved in. The company is still being watched for multiple reasons including the different EU antitrust investigations that are going on and similar investigations in the United States and other countries. Therefore, the decision is a noticeable step but it is just part of the big story of the company being faced with some legal issues.
Google issued a statement in which it expressed satisfaction with the Court's judgment while also underlining its commitment to bring products to the market that will not only help users but also the businesses. On the other hand, Margrethe Vestager, EU's Competition Commissioner, was clearly saying that the Commission would not tolerate any anti-competitive behavior in the digital market. She was even speaking of the probability of applying new regulatory actions in the future
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Author: John Miller
