The decision was overturned European Commission that he had Google condemnedThe case concerns the advertising platform AdSense, which the giant has been managing since 2003.
The decision comes despite confirmation of most of the assessments previously carried out by the European Commissionbecause the executive would not have taken into accountin this case, “of all relevant circumstances in the assessment of the duration of contractual clauses which he had described as abusive“.
The Court of First Instance of the European Court of Justice today annulled the 2019 decision in Luxembourg with which the European Commission had inflicted on Google a fine of almost one and a half billion euros.
What is Google AdSense
Since 2003, the California-based multinational company manages the platform called AdSense for Search (Afs): a service of advertising intermediation linked to online searches. The Afs has allowed publishers of websites containing integrated search engines to display advertisements relating to online searches that users may perform on these websites. In this way, publishers could receive a a portion of the revenue generated by viewing of these advertisements.
The case
To use Afs, Publishers who generated sufficient revenue could negotiate a “service agreement” (“Google Services Agreement” – Asg) with Google. The Asg, however, contained clauses that limited or prohibited the display of advertisements for services competing with Afs.
In 2010 it was transmitted First complaint from German company accepted by European Commissionto which were added those of the other giants technology companies such as Microsoft, Expedia and Deutsche Telekom.
In 2016, after several complaints from Google competitors, The Commission has opened proceedings relating to three clauses contained in the Asg (referred to in the judgment as “exclusivity clause”, “placement clause” and “prior authorisation clause”). The Commission stressed that these clauses could eliminate competing AFS services.
In September 2016, Google announced deleted or modified these clauses.
In March 2019, the Commission found that Google had committed three separate violations which together constituted, a single and continuous crime, from January 2006 to September 2016and fined Google 1,494,459 euros.
What happened today?
With today's decision, The Court, after confirming most of the Commission's assessments, nevertheless concludes that the Community Executive made errors in assessing the duration of the contested clauses, as well as part of the market covered by these during the year 2016. Therefore, according to the Court, the Commission did not demonstrate that the three clauses identified each constituted an abuse of a dominant position and, jointly, a single and continuous violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. The Court therefore annulled the Commission's decision in its entirety.
Until this moment No official comment has come from Google management, but the sanctions received by the multinational, on aspects that concern the freedom of competition in the market, have reached a total of around 8 billion euros over the last ten years.
