France’s data privacy watchdog has fined Google €50 million (US$57 million), the first penalty for a US tech giant under new European data privacy rules that took effect last year, reported the Walls Street Journal. The National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) announced Monday, January 21, it fined the US internet giant for “lack of transparency, […]
In cooperation with the Austrian competition authority (BWB) the Bundeskartellamt conducted an administrative proceeding against Google, Mountain View and Eyeo, Cologne for concluding anticompetitive agreements.The proceeding was terminated after the companies amended a so-called “whitelisting contract” between them which had originally significantly restricted Eyeo’s independent entrepreneurial ad-blocking activity. Under the name “Adblock Plus”, Eyeo offers […]
According to Bloomberg, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is set to announce a penalty targeting Google’s AdSense advertising service in the coming weeks. The EU stated in 2016 that Google hindered competition for online ads with its AdSense for Search product which places advertising on websites, including retailers, telecommunications operators and newspapers. While its European […]
According to Reuters, Turkey’s competition authority announced it had launched an investigation into whether internet search engine Google broke Turkey’s competition law with algorithms it uses for searches and to target advertisements. The probe follows a complaint that Alphabet Inc’s Google unit had “abused its dominant position and made the efforts of other companies difficult,” […]
According to a report from Bloomberg, Google won a European Union court order that prevents local search service Yelp and advocacy group Consumer Watchdog from teaming up with the EU on a legal challenge of a 2017 antitrust fine. The EU’s General Court declared Yelp “cannot be directly affected” by the EU’s ruling over Google’s comparison-shopping […]
Google’s New York City office is already its largest outside the San Francisco Bay Area, but on Monday, December 17, the company announced plans to spend over US$1 billion to double the size of its New York workforce to more than 14,000. The company will build a new campus in the Hudson Square neighborhood, about […]
The Fair Trade Commission has decided to launch a massive survey in January into the business practices of internet technology giants, a senior lawmaker said Wednesday. The planned survey is designed to learn how four large firms that provide online search and shopping services, Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.com, conduct business and how best to […]
Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, addressed lawmakers on Tuesday, December 11, in his first appearance before Congress, where he answered questions about alleged political bias and the company’s antitrust issues. This is the first time Pichai has appeared before Congress since Google declined to send him or Alphabet CEO Larry Page to a hearing on […]
Australia’s competition watchdog on Monday, December 10, recommended tougher scrutiny and a new regulatory body to check the dominance of tech giants Facebook and Alphabet’s Google in the country’s online advertising and news markets. The recommendation, in a preliminary report on the US firms’ market power, comes days after Australia passed laws forcing tech companies […]
The European Commission’s latest investigation into Google won’t conclude before the end of the year, the EU’s antitrust chief said Tuesday, December 4. Speaking at a press conference at the Slush tech conference in Helsinki, Finland, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the EU’s probe involving Google’s AdSense service would “not be done before […]