Europe targets Google’s ad business with lawsuit

Bloomberg news agency writes in an exclusive report that the European Union is pursuing a complaint against Google and will probably consider a heavy fine for the American technology industry giant as a result of this case. Europe is also looking to target Google’s advertising business, the business unit that generates most of Google’s revenue.

The new EU case, the details of which are likely to be released to the media soon, focuses on Google’s advertising unit. Google earns almost 80% of its annual revenue through advertising. This business unit recorded about 225 billion dollars in revenue in 2022.

The European Union believes that Google has violated antitrust laws through its advertising unit. If the court rules in favor of Europe, Google may have to pay a fine equal to 10% of global revenue. Europe may also force Google to change its business model.

In response to the release of the new report, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) stock rose 0.8 percent. Google has not responded to media requests for clarification.

Google has billions of users and through the information it collects from them, it provides effective advertising services to its customers.

The European Union first launched an investigation against Google’s advertising business in 2021. This research showed that Google has prevented competitors from accessing user data for online advertising. Europe also focused on the Google-Meta agreement, but in 2022 it dropped that part from its investigation.

Britain is also separately investigating Google’s advertising business.