Turkey fines Google $25m for online advertising abuse

Turkey’s competition authority on Friday fined Google 196.7 million lira (25.54 million dollars) for abusing its dominant position in the online search market.

The State News agency Anadolu reported that Google Inc is to pay the said amount or face further prosecution.

Google “intensively” uses tactics on its search engine to block rivals in the online advertising business, an investigation by Turkish competition authority found, the report said.

The competition investigation included Google’s Turkey branch as well as Google International, Google Ireland Limited and Alphabet Inc.

In February, Turkey slapped 98.3 million lira (12.7 million dollars) fine on Google over similar anti-trust charges.

dpa/NAN