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The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection in Poland (UOKIK), Tomasz Chróstny, announced on Monday that charges have been brought against four companies within the Google corporate group for abusing their dominant market position through the use of Polish media publishers’ content in Google search results and other services.
According to UOKIK, Google failed to comply with European Union (EU) Directive 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM) when negotiating agreements with Polish press publishers. These negotiations concerned the use of publishers’ publications by Google search engines and its personalized services for phones and tablets, namely Google News and Google Discover, as well as the determination of the amount of remuneration.
Consequently, the President of UOKIK brought charges against four companies affiliated with the Google group, which are Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited, and Google Poland.
The competition authority detailed that Google did not provide media publishers with the legally required data to assess the proposed rates, nor did it indicate how press publications are used or the revenues generated from them. UOKIK further added that Google did not explain the parameters used to calculate remunerations or provide documents to verify its assumptions, which resulted in an information asymmetry between publishers and the company.
UOKIK argued that these practices enabled Google to abuse its dominant position by imposing unfair terms on Polish media publishers regarding remuneration for the use of their publications, which is prohibited by competition law. The restriction of competition in this case involves withholding data from publishers, preventing them from assessing the profitability of the proposed offer or presenting their own proposal, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to negotiate on an equal footing.
If convicted, Poland’s competition authority may impose a fine of up to 10 percent in accordance with Article 106 of the Act of February 16 2007 on Competition and Consumer Protection.
Abuse of dominant market position refers to the situation in which a company with significant market power uses its economic strength to restrict or damage competition by behaving independently of competitors, customers, and consumers. Under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), a dominant position is not illegal in itself, only the abuse of such a position to exclude competitors or impose terms on consumers or other market participants is prohibited.
This is not the first time that Google has faced antitrust investigations from European or national authorities. In April 2025, a US federal judge found that Google LLC violated federal antitrust law by engaging in anti-competitive acts to gain monopoly power and restrict competition. In August 2025, the Australian competition watchdog fined the tech company $55 million for anti-competitive practices.
Similarly, in September of the same year, the EU fined Google $3.46 billion for abusing its position in the online advertising technology sector by favouring its own ad exchange service over other competitors. More recently, the European Commission imposed two fines against Google for giving preferential treatment to its own services, in violation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The post Poland competition authority launches investigation against Google for antitrust law violations appeared first on JURIST - News.
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According to UOKIK, Google failed to comply with European Union (EU) Directive 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM) when negotiating agreements with Polish press publishers. These negotiations concerned the use of publishers’ publications by Google search engines and its personalized services for phones and tablets, namely Google News and Google Discover, as well as the determination of the amount of remuneration.
Consequently, the President of UOKIK brought charges against four companies affiliated with the Google group, which are Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited, and Google Poland.
The competition authority detailed that Google did not provide media publishers with the legally required data to assess the proposed rates, nor did it indicate how press publications are used or the revenues generated from them. UOKIK further added that Google did not explain the parameters used to calculate remunerations or provide documents to verify its assumptions, which resulted in an information asymmetry between publishers and the company.
UOKIK argued that these practices enabled Google to abuse its dominant position by imposing unfair terms on Polish media publishers regarding remuneration for the use of their publications, which is prohibited by competition law. The restriction of competition in this case involves withholding data from publishers, preventing them from assessing the profitability of the proposed offer or presenting their own proposal, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to negotiate on an equal footing.
If convicted, Poland’s competition authority may impose a fine of up to 10 percent in accordance with Article 106 of the Act of February 16 2007 on Competition and Consumer Protection.
Abuse of dominant market position refers to the situation in which a company with significant market power uses its economic strength to restrict or damage competition by behaving independently of competitors, customers, and consumers. Under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), a dominant position is not illegal in itself, only the abuse of such a position to exclude competitors or impose terms on consumers or other market participants is prohibited.
This is not the first time that Google has faced antitrust investigations from European or national authorities. In April 2025, a US federal judge found that Google LLC violated federal antitrust law by engaging in anti-competitive acts to gain monopoly power and restrict competition. In August 2025, the Australian competition watchdog fined the tech company $55 million for anti-competitive practices.
Similarly, in September of the same year, the EU fined Google $3.46 billion for abusing its position in the online advertising technology sector by favouring its own ad exchange service over other competitors. More recently, the European Commission imposed two fines against Google for giving preferential treatment to its own services, in violation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The post Poland competition authority launches investigation against Google for antitrust law violations appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.