Five years ago this week… The European Commission (EC) slapped Google with yet another wave of antitrust allegations, claiming that Google had abused its dominant 80% share of the European advertising market to restrict the placement of ads for its competitors – in other words, choking consumer choice and innovation. The main culprit was thought to be AdSense, Google’s self-service ad placement technology for third-party websites, but its flagship search engine was also getting a look in, with suspicions running high that it prioritized search results for the company’s own shopping service while restricting Amazon and eBay. The EC eventually fined Google $1.7 billion in March 2019 for this round of allegations, with the total figure comfortably around the $10…