European Publishers Seek €640 Million From Google Over Adtech Conduct

Europe’s Google AdTech dispute has entered a new phase, shifting from regulatory findings
toward private claims for compensation. Public enforcement can establish that a company
violated the law and can develop the factual record that supports that conclusion, but it does
not, on its own, compensate the businesses that were harmed. That function belongs to private
claimants, and in the Netherlands those claimants have now begun to act.

In June 2026, twenty-one European news publishers filed a follow-on claim against Google in
Amsterdam, seeking more than €640 million in damages. The claim is based on the European
Commission’s September 2025 decision, which fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its
dominant position in advertising technology. In that decision, the Commission found that
Google had favored its own AdTech services across the supply chain that connects advertisers
with publishers, distorting competition on both the sell side and the buy side of the market.

This is the second major publisher claim of its kind in the Dutch courts. In 2024, more than
thirty media organizations from seventeen countries filed a separate Dutch claim for roughly
€2.1 billion, based on the same conduct. Both cases frame the harm from the publisher’s
perspective, and both rest on the same theory, that Google’s control of the AdTech stack
reduced what publishers earned for their inventory while increasing the fees taken from each
transaction.

The position of a publisher, however, differs from that of an advertiser, and that distinction is
central to understanding these cases. Publishers sell advertising inventory while advertisers buy
it, and Google’s AdTech business operates between them, providing the tools that sell ad space,
the tools that buy it, and the auction that connects the two. A publisher therefore argues that
Google paid sellers too little, while an advertiser argues that Google charged buyers too much.
The underlying economics are related, but each claimant stands on a different side of the same
market.

That difference explains why the European cases are relevant to advertisers without resolving
the advertiser’s question. The publisher claims show that a regulatory finding can support a
concrete demand for damages and that courts are prepared to consider it. The Commission’s
decision, however, addressed more than the sell side. It also found that Google had configured
its buy-side tools, Google Ads and DV360, to direct spending toward its own exchange even
when competing exchanges offered better prices or placements. That finding concerns
advertisers directly and comes from the regulator itself.

A similar shift is underway in the United States, though it follows a different procedural path.
Because most contracts governing Google Ads accounts require disputes to be resolved through
private arbitration, advertiser claims in the United States are proceeding through Google Ads
arbitration rather than through collective court actions. The forum differs from the Dutch
publisher litigation, but the direction is the same, moving from public fines toward private
recovery.

Digital Ads Recovery Center focuses on the advertiser side of this market. For companies
evaluating a Google Ads arbitration claim, as some have called it, a Google Ads refund claim, or
want to eventually recoup some sort of Google Ads settlement from Google, the European
publisher cases provide useful context. They confirm that regulators and courts continue to
examine how Google operated the AdTech market, and they show why any claimant should
understand exactly where it sits in that market before assessing a possible recovery.

Across both regions, the same dynamic is at work. Google’s exposure over its AdTech conduct is
no longer limited to a single regulator, a single country, or a single type of claimant. In Europe,
publishers are pursuing the revenue they believe they lost, while in the United States
advertisers are examining whether they were overcharged. Although these claims begin at
opposite ends of the same stack, they share a common premise, that Google controlled both
the sale and the purchase of digital advertising, and that the businesses on each side now have
grounds to seek compensation.