BRUSSELS, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Alphabet unit

Google won its challenge on Wednesday against a 1.49 billion

euro ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine imposed five years ago for

hindering rivals in online search advertising, a week after it

lost a much bigger case.

The European Commission in its 2019 decision said Google had

abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers

other than its AdSense platform that provided search adverts.

The practices it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016.

The Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the

European Union competition enforcer's assessments of the case,

but annulled the fine.

"The court (...) upheld most of the commission's

assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost

1.5 billion euros on Google, on the grounds in particular that

it had failed to take into account all the relevant

circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the

contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair," the judges

said.

The AdSense fine, one of a trio of fines that have cost

Google a total of 8.25 billion euros, was triggered by a

complaint from Microsoft ( MSFT ) in 2010.

Google has said it changed the targeted contracts in 2016

before the Commission's decision.

The company last week lost its final fight against a 2.42

billion euro fine levied for using its price comparison shopping

service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European

rivals.

The case is T-334/19 Google and Alphabet v Commission

(Google AdSense for Search).

($1 = 0.8985 euros)