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| France targets Google with a fine of $267 million |
On Monday, the French competition authority fined Google 220 million euros ($268 million) for using its market power in the online advertising industry.
The French competition authority said Google uses unfair means to send companies to its service and discriminates against competition.
The agency said Google had agreed to pay fines and halt some preferred practices.
The investigation found that Google is giving preference to a DFP ad server so that website and app publishers can sell their ad space.
It also violates the preferential treatment of the SSP AdX SEO platform, which runs auctions and allows publishers to sell impressions to advertisers.
The regulator said Google's competitors and publishers suffered losses as a result.
The head of the French competition authority confirmed that the decision was the first in the world to focus on how online advertising works with a complex algorithmic auction process.
She added that the investigation revealed how Google used ad servers and display platforms to differentiate itself from its competitors.
Publishers use these servers and platforms to manage, sell, and optimize the ad space on their websites and mobile apps.
The authorities said: These practices stifled competition in the emerging online advertising market and allowed Google to maintain and strengthen its dominant position.
Google is changing its approach:
Google announced in a blog post on Monday that it will be making a number of changes to its advertising technology.
"We understand the role of advertising technology in facilitating access to content and information," she wrote. We are committed to working with supervisory authorities. We invest in new products and technologies to give publishers more choices and better results when using our platform.
The investigation came after the American News Corporation, the French newspaper Le Figaro and the Belgian press group Roussel filed complaints against Google.
Fearing that tech giants are exerting too much influence on more than 700 million EU citizens, regulators across Europe are cracking down on them.
Last week, Facebook was the subject of antitrust investigations by UK and European Union regulators.
In recent years, the European Commission has launched investigations against Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The UK's Market and Competition Regulatory Authority has also launched investigations against Apple and Google since they became an independent regulator after Britain's exit from the European Union in January.