Google wins challenge against $1.66 bln EU antitrust fine

STORY: Alphabet's Google now won't have to pay at least one huge fine to the EU.

The tech giant won its challenge on Wednesday (September 18) against a $1.66 billion antitrust fine imposed five years ago.

The European Commission had accused Google of hurting rivals in online search advertising.

It said Google used its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform that provided search adverts.

The practices it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016.

But while the Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the EU competition enforcer's assessments of the case, it annulled the fine.

The Judges said the Commission had "failed to take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair".

The AdSense fine was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft fourteen years ago.

Google has argued it changed the targeted contracts in 2016 before the Commission's decision.

But the company must still pay a separate EU penalty.

Last week it lost its final fight against a $2.7 billion fine for using its price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.

Google isn't the only U.S. tech giant to fall foul of EU regulators.

Meta faces a huge fine over its alleged efforts to dominate the classified advertising market.

That's according to Britain's Financial Times on Wednesday.

The report said EU regulators will claim Facebook's parent company links its free Marketplace services with the social network in an effort to undermine its rivals.