Google AdWords Deemed Discriminatory
July 5th, 2010 by adminGoogle has been ordered by a French competition regulator to restore its traffic light warning system for adverts after it was held that Google’s blocking of such adverts without prior warning could be discriminatory. A final ruling will be made in a few months time on the issue.
Navx’s website has resources useful for drivers , such as the location of speed camera’s. The Authorité de la Concurrence has stated that when Google blocked Navx from advertising through Google’s advertising service, AdWords, the website’s revenues were critically affected as a result.
The French competition regulator, the Authorité de la Concurrence, recently made an interim ruling after finding that Google had been acting unfairly by putting on hold Navx’s account without prior warning. The regulator further added that the search engine giant will have just four months to make clear its policies.
Google released a statement that said through AdWords they advise advertisers to not advertise speed-radar identification services and that other countries have banned advertising of such.
It has been estimated that Navx’s revenue fell by almost 70% from the date of the suspension by Google. As a result, Navx was obliged to purchase Google ads due to the fact that more than 90% of French online searches are made via Google’s search engine.
The European Court of Justice has said that Google have not broken the law but that it is the advertisers that are likely to have broken the law in reality.
