Germany Slams Google with Record €573M Antitrust Fine—Tech Giant’s Worst Nightmare Just Got Real

Berlin drops the hammer—Google's antitrust reckoning arrives with a half-billion-euro gut punch.

The verdict? Germany won't tolerate Big Tech's playground bullying anymore. A regional court just handed down a €573 million penalty, proving even Silicon Valley titans bleed when regulators grow teeth.

Behind the scenes: This ruling exposes the fragile facade of tech monopolies—turns out even algorithm wizards can't math their way out of old-fashioned antitrust laws. Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts are already recalculating how many zeroes it'll take to make this 'compliance cost' disappear from next quarter's earnings call.

Google offers ad tech changes to settle separate EU case

Today, Google said it WOULD make changes to its advertising technology to resolve another EU complaint. As reported by Cryptopolitan, the company faces a nearly €3 billion fine in that case, but hopes its proposed fixes will settle the matter without having to split up parts of its business.

Google said through a blog post that it would let publishers set their own minimum prices when people bid for ad space on its Ad Manager platform. The company also promised to make its ad technology work better with other systems, giving publishers and advertisers more options.

Even with these proposed changes, Google said it still thinks the European Commission got it wrong in its September ruling and plans to fight the decision. EU officials claimed the Alphabet unit gave unfair advantages to its own ad services and demanded the company stop these practices.

Record fines continue to mount against tech giant

Teresa Ribera, who leads competition enforcement for the EU, suggested Google might need to sell off some parts of its advertising business to truly fix the problems. This idea does not go as far as what her predecessor Margrethe Vestager wanted, but Google still sees it as too extreme.

The €2.95 billion fine for the ad tech case ranks as one of Brussels’ biggest punishments. It stands as the second-largest penalty ever given to Google by the EU for abusing its market power. The company previously paid €4.13 billion over its Android mobile system and €2.42 billion for hurting shopping search competitors.

Another €1.49 billion fine related to AdSense was thrown out last year.

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