Category: antitrust

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Google hit with $1.7 billion fine for anticompetitive ad practices

sudshr47 March 20, 2019

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The EU is making Google pay for its anti-competitive practices.

On Wednesday, the European Commission ordered Google to pay a huge €1.49 billion antitrust fine (roughly $1.7 billion USD) for “abusive practices in online advertising.”

The Commission determined that Google had engaged in illegal conduct to “cement its dominant market position” with its Adsense program, which had a market share of more than 70 percent from 2006 to 2016 in Europe.

Hundreds of Google’s advertising agreements with major websites were reviewed by the commission, which discovered numerous restrictive clauses that blocked the company’s advertising rivals from competing in the market. Read more…

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Google fined $1.49BN in Europe for antitrust violations in search ad brokering

sudshr47 March 20, 2019

The European Commission has just announced another antitrust fine for Google . The latest fine — $1.49BN — relates to its search ad brokering business which competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager noted today is “by far” the company’s main source of revenue. “Today’s decision is about how Google abused its domiance to stop website’s using brokers […]

View More Google fined $1.49BN in Europe for antitrust violations in search ad brokering
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Ahead of third antitrust ruling, Google announces fresh tweaks to Android in Europe

sudshr47 March 20, 2019

Google is widely expected to be handed a third antitrust fine in Europe this week, with reports suggesting the European Commission’s decision in its long-running investigation of AdSense could land later today. Right on cue the search giant has PRed another Android product tweak — which it bills as “supporting choice and competition in Europe”. […]

View More Ahead of third antitrust ruling, Google announces fresh tweaks to Android in Europe
Android antitrust Apple Apps chrome os competition commission DuckDuckGo Europe european commission european union France G Suite Google Image Search joaquin almunia Jolla Kent Walker Margrethe Vestager Mobile operating systems play store Policy Qwant search app Search Engine Search Engines smartphone Spotify travel search

Ahead of third antitrust ruling, Google announces fresh tweaks to Android in Europe

sudshr47 March 20, 2019

Google is widely expected to be handed a third antitrust fine in Europe this week, with reports suggesting the European Commission’s decision in its long-running investigation of AdSense could land later today. Right on cue the search giant has PRed another Android product tweak — which it bills as “supporting choice and competition in Europe”. […]

View More Ahead of third antitrust ruling, Google announces fresh tweaks to Android in Europe
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Why a top antitrust lawmaker thinks it’s time to break up Facebook

sudshr47 March 19, 2019

When the newly-minted chair of a congressional antitrust committee calls you out, it’s probably time to start worrying. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Rhode Island Representative David N. Cicilline has called on the Federal Trade Commission to look into Facebook’s behavior for potential antitrust violations, citing TechCrunch’s own reporting that the company […]

View More Why a top antitrust lawmaker thinks it’s time to break up Facebook
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Apple addresses Spotify’s claims, but not its demands

sudshr47 March 15, 2019

Two days after Spotify announced that it had filed a suit against Apple with the European Commission over anticompetitive practices, Apple today issued its own response of sorts. In a lengthy statement on its site called “Addressing Spotify’s Claims”, Apple walks through and dismantles some of the key parts of Spotify’s accusations about how the App Store […]

View More Apple addresses Spotify’s claims, but not its demands
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Google has quietly added DuckDuckGo as a search engine option for Chrome users in ~60 markets

sudshr47 March 13, 2019

In an update to the chromium engine, which underpins Google’s popular Chrome browser, the search giant has quietly updated the lists of default search engines it offers per market — expanding the choice of search product users can pick from in markets around the world. Most notably it’s expanded search engine lists to include pro-privacy […]

View More Google has quietly added DuckDuckGo as a search engine option for Chrome users in ~60 markets
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Amazon reportedly nixes its price parity requirement for third-party sellers in the U.S.

sudshr47 March 12, 2019

Amazon will stop forbidding third-party merchants who list on its e-commerce platform in the United States from selling the same products on other sites for lower prices, reports Axios. The company’s decision to end its price parity provision comes three months after Sen. Richard Blumenthal urged the Department of Justice to open an antitrust investigation […]

View More Amazon reportedly nixes its price parity requirement for third-party sellers in the U.S.
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Online platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament report

sudshr47 March 11, 2019

The latest policy recommendations for regulating powerful Internet platforms comes from a U.K. House of Lord committee that’s calling for an overarching digital regulator to be set up to plug gaps in domestic legislation and work through any overlaps of rules. “The digital world does not merely require more regulation but a different approach to […]

View More Online platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament report
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Don’t break up big tech — regulate data access, says EU antitrust chief

sudshr47 March 11, 2019

Breaking up tech giants should be a measure of last resort, the European Union’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has suggested. “To break up a company, to break up private property would be very far reaching and you would need to have a very strong case that it would produce better results for consumers in the […]

View More Don’t break up big tech — regulate data access, says EU antitrust chief
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The other smartphone business

sudshr47 March 9, 2019

With the smartphone operating system market sewn up by Google’s Android platform, which has a close to 90% share globally, leaving Apple’s iOS a slender (but lucrative) premium top-slice, a little company called Jolla and its Linux-based Sailfish OS is a rare sight indeed: A self-styled ‘independent alternative’ that’s still somehow in business. The Finnish […]

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FTC creates antitrust task force to monitor tech industry

sudshr47 February 26, 2019

The field of technology and the business practices within it tend to advance faster than regulators can keep up. But the FTC is making a concerted effort with a new 17-lawyer tech task force dedicated to ensuring “free and fair competition” and watching for anticompetitive conduct among technology companies.

View More FTC creates antitrust task force to monitor tech industry