TOKYO– Japan’s antitrust watchdog said Monday that U.S. search giant Google must fix its search advertising restrictions affecting Yahoo in Japan.
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission said in a statement that its recent study into Google’s practices showed it was undermining fair competition in the advertising market.
Yahoo Japan Corp., which has since merged with Japanese social media platform Line, began offering keyword-based search advertising services using Google technology after the two companies formed an alliance in 2010.
The FTC alleges that Google had imposed restrictions in its search advertising agreement with Yahoo Japan that for more than seven years hampered its ability to compete in targeted search ads.
An FTC investigation into whether that violated the Antitrust Act led Google to remove the restrictions.
Google said in an emailed statement that it has fully cooperated with the commission’s investigation and emphasized that the commission has not found that it has openly violated antitrust laws. He promised to carry out the commission’s directives to provide “valuable” search functions to Japanese users and advertisers.
Line Yahoo declined to comment.
Google will be reviewed over the next three years to ensure it makes the necessary changes, the commission said. It did not impose fines or other sanctions on Google, which remains popular among Japanese.
The commission’s move follows another setback for Google in Japan. Last week, Japanese doctors filed a civil lawsuit against the company, demanding compensation for what they say are baseless and often false derogatory comments.
The Tokyo District Court lawsuit seeks 1.4 million yen ($9,400) in damages for 63 medical professionals for reviews posted on Google Maps.
Google responded that it is working “24 hours a day” to reduce misleading or false information on its platform, combining human and technological resources “to eliminate fraudulent reviews.”
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Yuri Kageyama is in X https://twitter.com/yurikageyama