The European Commission has launched a formal antitrust inquiry into Google, examining whether the company violates EU competition rules by favoring its own online advertising services over similar bids from competitors.
In one statement, the European Commission said the official investigation will examine whether Google has cut off competition by restricting third parties (advertisers, publishers or competing online ad serving intermediaries) from accessing user data for advertising purposes on websites and applications, while at the same time retaining such data for its own use.
“Google collects data for use in targeted advertising purposes, sells advertising space and also acts as an online advertising intermediary. Therefore, Google is present at almost all its levels chains for online ad viewing," said European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager.
"We are concerned that Google has made it more difficult for competing online advertising services to compete with the so-called ad tech stack. "Equal conditions of competition are essential for everyone in the chain."
Specifically, the research will look at how Google uses some of the ad serving services, such as Display & Video 360 (DV360), Google Ads, AdX, and Doubleclick ID.
The committee will also consider Google's announced plans to retire the cookies of third parties in Chrome and their replacement with Privacy Sandbox, as well as the pending changes to advertising IDs on Android.
If Google is found to favor its own online advertising services over others, the company could face fines for violating Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position in competitive agreements. which hinder, restrict or distort competition within the EU.
Google is also facing three antitrust lawsuits in America that accuse the company of abusing its market power on various occasions. The charges against Google refer to the reordering of results search to eliminating competition, colluding with Facebook to manipulate the digital ad market and anti-competitiveness in the digital ad markets.
