June 23, 2021

The European Commission has recently opened an investigation to find out if Google dominates the online advertising market to the detriment of its rivals.

It will scrutinize Google’s role in collecting data, selling advertising space and providing online advertising.

The commission is concerned that Google makes it more difficult for other online advertisers to compete.

Google has pledged to cooperate with the investigation.

The inquiry will examine:

• an obligation to use Google services and/or Google ads to purchase ads on YouTube
• the obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online ads on YouTube
• the apparent favoritism of Google’s AdX ad exchange through its other services
• the restrictions that Google imposes on rival advertisers to access data about the identity or behaviour of participants;
• Google’s plans to ban third-party cookies on Chrome
• Google’s plans to make the ad identifier inaccessible to third parties on Android smartphones

In the U.K., the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has received assurances from Google that any alternative it develops will prevent this.

Google has also agreed with the CMA to make public the results of tests of new technologies and to limit the way in which individual user data is used and combined for advertising purposes.

Google has been hit by a series of EU fines over the past three years, which have so far totalled €8.25 billion.

Google and Facebook account for a large share of the global market for Internet ads, but both companies’ practices are now coming under increasing scrutiny by regulators around the world.

For more information, read the original story in the BBC.