Google to face new EU antitrust charges

Google could face a lawsuit in the EU that accuses it of anticompetitive conduct in the digital advertising. The company risks its fourth billion-euro fine. 

Most of Alphabet's revenue (about 80%) comes from adtech business, which generated more than $100 billion in revenue last year. It is still considered the biggest money maker, despite the fact that the holding company tried to drive sales of hardware, subscription services, and cloud computing technology.

In June last year, the European Commission opened a probe to examine whether Google  had market dominance over competitors. 

The company that is at risk of a fourth fine tried to resolve the case but failed to do it. Over the past decade, Google has been fined more than 8 billion euros ($7.7 billion) in EU antitrust fines. 

According to the person familiar with the matter, the European Commission may come to the preliminary conclusion early next year, although it’s not final yet. 

As reported by Dieter Paemen, a partner at law firm Clifford Chance who had experience advising Google's competitors in other cases, the court will investigate Google's advertising-driven business model and advertisers, publishers, ad tech providers and users who suffered from the company’s anticompetitive behavior in the market. Google is accused of offering its services to both publishers and advertisers. 

There have been a lot of victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in ad tech, which complaints have led to investigations into Google's ad tech practices on five continents. 

The revenue of Google's advertising business was about $111 billion over the first half of the year. According to Refinitive, analysts estimate Google ad revenue of $233 billion, which is about 11% more than a year ago.