What are the biggest fines Google has ever paid? Over the last 10 years alone, Google has been hit with a ton of fines, and Russia is not its biggest “accuser.” To understand the situation, I suggest looking at Google’s behavior over the last 10 years. The fines are listed in the national currencies of the countries affected by Google and then reduced to a common denominator in US dollars. Here are the fines with a brief description of the violations of local laws (small fines are not listed):
2017 year. The European Commission has fined Google €2.49 billion ($2.77 billion) in Europe for abusing its dominance in search engine markets to run its own comparison shopping service (similar to Yandex’s best price tracking).
In 2018 The European Commission has handed Google the largest fine of the 21st century, €3.9 billion ($4.33 billion), for antitrust violations involving Android. Google was found guilty of requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome as a condition for accessing the Google Play Store, effectively limiting competition from other browsers and search engines.
2019 year. This time, the European Commission fined the tech giant €1.31 billion ($1.45 billion) for abusing its dominant position in the online advertising market. Google, in violation of all antitrust laws, introduced restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites, prohibiting them from displaying ads from its competitors.
2019 year. The US Federal Trade Commission has specifically targeted Google subsidiary YouTube. It has fined Google $170 million in the US for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). YouTube was found to be collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent and placing targeted ads, which is illegal when it comes to children.
2020 year. The French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) has fined Google €89 million ($98.879 million) for violating the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The fine was imposed because Google failed to provide clear and transparent information about its data collection practices and failed to obtain proper consent from users for personalized advertising. It was one of the first major fines under the GDPR, and EU citizens have been deciding whether to accept cookies ever since.
2021 year. At the time, French authorities were just beginning to “cooperate” with Google, and in 2021 slapped the tech company with a massive fine of €449 million ($489.39 million). This was due to failure to comply with a regulation on paying news publishers for the use of their content. The regulator criticized Google for limiting the scope of negotiations by excluding press images and failing to discuss proper compensation.
2021 year. In one of the most specific complaints, Italy’s AGCM fined Google €96 million ($106.56 million) for abusing its dominant market position by excluding the Enel X JuicePass app from its Android Auto platform. JuicePass is an app for locating and managing electric vehicle charging points, and by excluding it, Google limited the functionality of Android Auto.
2021 year. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has imposed a fine of 207 billion Korean won (US$155,250). Google was accused of abusing its dominant market position by forcing Android phone makers to sign Anti-Fragmentation Agreements (AFAs) that prevented manufacturers from developing or using forked versions of Android. According to the Korean FTC, this effectively stifled innovation and competition in the smartphone operating system market.
2022 year. France’s CNIL has fined Google €134.8 million ($149.63 million) for not allowing French users to reject cookies with one tap. France’s CNIL regulator found that Google websites, including Google France and YouTube France, did not provide a simple one-tap option to reject cookies, allowing users to only accept cookies with one tap.
2022 year. The location data controversy reared its head again in 2022, when the ACCC (Australia’s regulator) fined Google A$60 million (US$40.8 million) for misleading Australian consumers about how to collect and use their data. Google was found to have misled users about how to turn off location tracking on Android devices. Even when users believed they had turned off location tracking, Google continued to collect their location data.
2022 year. Competition Commission of India: Complaints have been on the rise in India in 2022, leading to Google being hit with two hefty fines totaling INR 22.74 billion (US$271.843 million). The first fine was against Google Android, where Google was found to be abusing its dominant market position by promoting its own apps and services and restricting competition from others. The second fine was against Google’s Play Store policies, where the company was found guilty of imposing unfair terms on app developers, such as mandating the use of Google’s payment system.
2023, October. Google LLC, as the sole legal representative of Google in Russia, was declared bankrupt by the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court. It still has to pay fines in the Russian Federation (the main fines were received for improper content moderation, failure to remove advertisements for drugs, extremism, child pornography, etc.). As a result, Google LLC in Russia, as of the end of 2023, still owes the state about 29 billion rubles (US$318,183 out of a total fine of 271 billion rubles (US$29 million). After the bankruptcy of Google LLC, as of early January 2024, the bailiffs’ writs of execution against Google closed at the cost of declaring bankruptcy. But the debts themselves remained, including payments to 860 creditors and even dismissed employees, to whom, by law, the limited company is obliged to pay compensation for the loss of work due to the fault of the employer. In general, the Russian division of Google, which earned 85 billion rubles in 2020, lost everything by 2024.
2024 year. France’s data protection authority CNIL fined the company €250 million ($277.643 million) for Google’s violation of intellectual property rules by using content from digital publishers to train its artificial intelligence service Bard. This was in violation of Google’s previous commitments made in a 2019 case aimed at ensuring fair negotiations between news agencies, publishers, and digital platforms. Google used third-party content to train Bard without even notifying the authors or the companies representing them.
In addition, inflation must be taken into account, which significantly increases (or decreases) the final actual fine after the verdict is announced. For example, given that many hearings lasted for years, the amount of the initial fines put forward by state prosecutors, if you use the calculator, initially amounted to 11.388 (excluding the Russian Federation) billion dollars, eventually increased to a total of 14.071 billion US dollars due to inflation.
A good picture of what’s behind Google’s fines.
Conclusion
In the second quarter of 2024, Google’s advertising revenue increased by 11% compared to the same period in 2023, to $64.6 billion. Most other metrics also increased, reported in the financial report. Write your opinion about Google. Can it afford to be fined, in your opinion?
Source: mobile-review.com
