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Google stacked its ad exchange against rivals — €2.95B EU fine
The EU fined Google €2.95B for making its own ad exchange AdX win auctions it hadn't earned — by tipping it off to rival bids and steering advertisers its way.
Google · 2025-09-05
What happened
On 5 September 2025 the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominance in online advertising technology, a breach of Article 102 of the EU Treaty. It followed a probe opened in June 2021 and a statement of objections issued in June 2023.
The Commission found two self-preferencing practices. First, through its dominant publisher ad server, Google informed its own ad exchange, AdX, in advance of the best rival bid it had to beat, so AdX could top it. Second, through its ad-buying tools Google Ads and DV360, Google avoided competing exchanges and bid mainly on AdX.
The conduct ran from at least 2014 to the present. The fine was set under the 2006 guidelines, taking earlier penalties into account. Google was ordered to stop and to put in place measures to end the inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain, with 60 days to respond.
The Commission signalled that only divesting part of its adtech services might suffice to end the practices. Google said it would appeal.
Why it happened
- A platform that runs the auction and the seats on both sides of it can see the rival bid coming and simply beat it — the auction stops measuring value.
- Helping your own exchange win by a margin it never earned raised advertisers' bids and quietly taxed the open-web advertising market.
The lesson
When one company runs the auction and owns both sides, the auction stops measuring value. An exchange told the number to beat is not an exchange — and the longer the conflict, the larger the bill.
Aftermath
Google said it would appeal. The Commission had opened the case in June 2021 and issued a statement of objections in June 2023 before the September 2025 decision. In its order it signalled that only divestiture of part of Google's adtech stack could be expected to end the practices, echoing years of complaints from publishers and rival exchanges that Google's vertical integration let it run the open-web advertising market in its own favour. The fine added to a series of EU antitrust penalties against Google.
Sources
- Antitrust: Commission fines Google €2.95 billion over abusive practices in online advertising technology — European Commission
- Google slapped by EU with $3.45 billion antitrust fine — CNBC
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