French regulator orders Google to review its advertising rules

(Add comments and Google details)

By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Paresh Dave

PARIS / SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 31 (Reuters) – The French regulator of competition ordered Thursday Google's Alphabet Inc. to review its policies and procedures for blocking certain commercials, claiming that its actions against the French company Amadeus could have been anti-competitive.

Google said it was reviewing the regulator's order, rendered in a preliminary injunction. Dominant search engine in France and in most countries, Google has been confronted with an increasingly strict regulation concerning the content broadcast in search results and advertisements.

The regulatory body has made the order as a preliminary injunction, while checking whether Google engaged in anti-competitive behavior.

Amadeus, which operates a directory service in France, complained to regulators of the drop in sales last year after Google prevented it from running ads from research.

"Amadeus is a paid telephone directory service that charges consumers for services available for free elsewhere or for a nominal fee," said Google. Google's rules prohibit advertisements for services that can be obtained for free or at a lower price from the government or from another public source.

"Some Amadeus ads have violated our terms and conditions for advertisers, designed to protect users," Google said.

In a press release, the regulatory authority said that Google needed to clarify its rules, warn them before blocking advertisers, review Amadeus' specific situation and further train its sales staff on the rules. advertising matter of the company.

The regulator said it "will guarantee the proper implementation of these interim measures and will make its decision on the merits of the case over the next few months".

This decision came a few weeks after the French data protection authorities fined Google 50 million euros for violating the EU's online privacy rules, the heaviest sanction of its kind. this guy inflicted on a giant american technology.

(1 $ = 0.8703 euros) (Report of Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris and Paresh Dave in San Francisco, edited by Leslie Adler)

Our standards: The principles of Thomson Reuters Trust.