Google has avoided a European Union $1.7 billion antitrust penalty over its AdSense advertising platform thanks to a Wednesday ruling from the EU General Court. The court annulled the European Commission fine.

Following a complaint from the European Publishers Council, the European Commission opened its investigation of the search giant, charging Google with violating its antitrust laws by using its advertising technology to undermine and unlawfully block rivals.

Antitrust officials had imposed the fine over how the search giant might have restricted the way that some websites displayed ads sold by its rivals.

The European Commission last year charged Google with favouring its own advertising services, opening its fourth case against the world's most popular search engine.

In an effort to quell monopoly concerns in the EU, Google reportedly offered to sell its AdX advertising marketplace. Sources told Reuters that European publishers rejected Google's offer, arguing that the company would have to divest more in order to dismantle the conflicts of interest in its online advertising operations.

Google this year offered to sell its advertising marketplace Ad Exchange, or AdX, to end an EU antitrust investigation. But European publishers rejected the proposal, Reuters reported this week . The news agency cited two people with knowledge of the matter but did not name them.

Alphabet's Google earlier this year offered to sell its advertising marketplace AdX to allay EU competition concerns over its adtech practices but the proposal got short shrift from European publishers,