Two months after Brussels slammed the US behemoth with a hefty fine, Google on Friday announced adjustments to its advertising services to reduce the possibility of a split.
Google received a $3 billion antitrust penalty from the European Commission in September for favoring its own services. The business was given 60 days to address the concerns.
US President Donald Trump angrily denounced the fine and promised to impose more taxes on the EU if it were verified. Google has declared that it will challenge the penalty.
“Our proposal fully addresses the decision without a disruptive breakup that would harm the thousands of European publishers and advertisers who use Google tools to grow their business,” a spokeswoman for Google stated.
Google stated that it still disagreed with the EU ruling even after accepting the ad-tech modifications.
The assurances, which come as the group balances its will to uphold its tech regulations with its caution about further inciting Trump, will now be evaluated by Brussels.
The European Commission opened a fresh investigation against the US corporation under its digital competition regulations just one day before Google’s statement due to concerns that it is unjustly suppressing some news sources in search results.
Google’s advertising services in the US are also under investigation.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in the United States ruled against Google for their ad-tech practices. In that Virginia case, Google is likewise trying to prevent a forced sale; closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.
In the coming weeks or months, the judge is expected to render a decision.
Quick adjustments
The commission claimed that Google had unjustly utilized its dominating position in internet advertising to favor its own services when it announced the September fine.
In addition to selling advertising on its own websites and applications, the internet behemoth also serves as a middleman for businesses looking to place advertisements elsewhere, which Brussels claims makes it more difficult for competitors to compete.
Google announced on Friday that its strategy includes immediate product enhancements, such as allowing publishers to use Google Ad Manager to establish various minimum pricing for different bidders.
Additionally, Google promised to improve the interoperability of its tools for publishers and advisors in response to the EU’s allegations of conflict of interest.
Google sent its strategy, according to the European Commission.
“We will now analyze Google’s proposed measures to assess whether they effectively bring the self-referencing practices to an end and address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest,” a representative for the commission stated.
In recent years, Brussels has fined Google numerous times.
It punished the massive company €2.4 billion in 2017 for anti-competitive behavior in the price comparison market and €4.1 billion in 2018 for exploiting the market dominance of its Android operating system.
As part of a digital competition investigation that began last year, the EU also accused Google in March of favoring its own services over competitors.
