European Commission fines Google for abusive online ad tech practices

On 5 September 2025, the European Commission has announced that Google has breached Article 2 (concerning abuse of a dominant position within the internal market or in substantial part of it) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Google has been hit with a EUR2.95 billion fine for the breach, has been ordered to bring their abusive practices to an end, and must propose measures that will address their conflicts of interest within 60 days. Should the Commission not find their proposed measures adequate, it is able to and will proceed to impose its own remedy. The Commission has indicated to Google that only divestment of part of their services would address the conflict of interest but is willing to wait and see what Google proposes.

The Commission first announced their investigation into Google’s practices on 22 June 2021, with the intention of looking into whether they were favouring their own advertising technology services over other providers. Their decision finds that Google are dominant in the European Economic Area-wide markets for both publisher ad servers and programmatic ad buying tools for the open web, and that they have been abusing these dominant positions since at least 2014.

The decision states that Google has been abusing the positions by favouring its own ad exchange tool, AdX, in the ways of:

1.    Favouring it in the ad selection auction which Google’s dominant publisher runs – by feeding AdX information that would allow it to beat competitors at auction; and

2.    Favouring it in the way its ad buying tools place bids on ad exchange – Google Ads has been seen to be avoiding competing ad exchanges and placing bids instead on AdX, making it the most attractive ad exchange tool and therefore giving it a competitive advantage over other ad exchanges.

These abuses of position have had the effect of giving AdX a competitive advantage, potentially foreclosing other rival ad exchanges. The result of this is that AdX has found itself with a central role in the advertising supply chain and has given Google the ability to charge higher fees for the service provided.

It is reported that Google disagrees with the Commission’s decision and has the intention of appealing.

This decision highlights the increasing scrutiny on dominant market players in the digital advertising space. Our Commercial team can help your business navigate competition law risks and develop effective compliance strategies.