>Google has abused this market dominance by preventing rivals from competing in the online search advertising intermediation market.
>Based on a broad range of evidence, the Commission found that Google's conduct harmed competition and consumers, and stifled innovation. Google's rivals were unable to grow and offer alternative online search advertising intermediation services to those of Google. As a result, owners of websites had limited options for monetizing space on these websites and were forced to rely almost solely on Google.
This just doesn't make sense to me. So Google offers the website search functionality. It then says "If you want to run ads, you have to use our ads" a few years later Google says "If you want to run ads, you have to give us the best N spots, and all other ads have to be approved by us." Because of this the EU concludes "rivals were unable to grow and offer alternative online search advertising intermediation services."
I am really trying to read the logic some other way but the logic appears to be as follows
1) Google let people set up search pages on individual websites.
2) Google set the terms for ads on those search pages so that Google had exclusive/best ad spots on those search pages.
3) 2 limited competitors ability to develop an alternative to 1.
4) Because Google had a dominate market position, 3 is illegal and should be fined.
This honestly feels pants-on-the-head crazy to me because I do not see how this logic doesn't apply to Google.com. Should Google be forced to let Bing run adds on "google.com/search?q=shoes"? No! Yet if it is "ShoeReviews.com/search?q=shoes" suddenly Google is required to let Bing run adds on it.
Edit: Formatting