The French competition authority alleged Google’s advertising server gave the company’s online ad auction house an advantage in advertising auctions.
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PARIS—Alphabet Inc.’s Google agreed to pay a fine of nearly $270 million as part of a settlement with French regulators of one of the first antitrust cases globally to allege the tech company abused its leading role in the digital advertising sector.
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France’s competition authority said Monday that, in addition to imposing the fine, it has accepted Google’s proposed commitments to settle the case, which include promises to make it easier for competitors to use its online-ad tools.
The authority also alleged other forms of self-preferencing between Google’s advertising-technology tools, including AdX’s offering better interoperability options to DoubleClick for Publishers.
Google’s commitments will be binding for three years, the authority said.
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