Europe fines Google $1.7 billion on advertising

The European Union has imposed a fine of 1.49 billion euros (about $1.7 billion) against Google's search engine, due to the damage it done to competitors in terms of advertising.

The European Commission accused Google of exploiting its dominance over the online searching while restricting the appearance of competitors' ads in search operations between 2006 and 2016.

In response, Google changed its advertising contracts with some major third parties and made it possible to offer more search ads to competitors.

Google's pre-tax profit from advertising was nearly $30.7 billion last year compared to $12.66 billion in 2017.

European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said Google's advertising practices were illegal and fall under the circle of monopoly practices, and added that the US search engine should stop that.

It is worth mentioning that the European Commission announced a fine last year on "Google" by about 4.3 billion euros because of they considered as the monopoly practices through the operating system, "Android" and it damages to competitors.

This came after a fine of 2.4 billion euros approved by the European Union on "Google" in 2017 because of blocking the emergence of competitors on e-shopping sites when searching.