On November 13, Google presented a compliance plan to European regulators that rejected suggestions for a forced split of its ad business and suggested technical adjustments to its advertising technology operations. The suggestion follows the European Commission’s September fine of €2.95 billion ($3.4 billion) for abusing its market dominance in digital advertising.
In order to give publishers and advertisers additional options, the tech giant’s strategy calls for enhancing tool interoperability and enabling publishers to set distinct minimum prices for different bids when using Google Ad Manager. “Our proposal fully addresses the EC’s decision without a disruptive break-up that would harm the thousands of European publishers and advertisers who use Google tools to grow their business,” Google wrote on its blog.
EU Considers Structural Solutions
Because Google operates on both sides of the advertising market, it has been illegally favoring its own ad exchange, AdX, since 2014, according to the European Commission. Google was given sixty days to come up with ways to resolve these disputes, but if the company’s efforts were not enough, the Commission threatened to order the sale of some of its operations.
“We will now analyze Google’s proposed measures to assess whether they effectively bring the self-preferencing practices to an end and address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest,” said a representative for the Commission. Google declared that the September fine was “unjustified” and that it would challenge it even though the plan had been submitted.
Pressure Is Increased By Parallel US Proceedings
In the United States, Google is under similar antitrust scrutiny after a federal judge declared in April 2025 that the corporation had unlawfully monopolized the ad exchange and publisher ad server industries. More drastic options, such as requiring Google to sell out its whole AdX exchange within a year, have been suggested by the US Department of Justice. On November 17, closing arguments started in that case.
U.S. President Donald Trump strongly criticized the European decision and threatened to impose tariffs on the EU in retaliation for the fine. Using social media, Trump said, “We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity,” threatening to “nullify the unfair penalties” by pursuing trade action.
Google’s market dominance cannot be addressed by a fine alone, the European Publishers Council, which brought the initial case against the corporation, said. “Google will simply write off the fine as a cost of business while consolidating its dominance,” expressed Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of EPC.