The European Commission decided, on Tuesday 22 June, to open a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether Google had violated EU competition rules by favouring its own online display advertising technology services in the so-called ‘Ad Tech’ supply chain, to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers.
The formal investigation will notably examine whether Google is distorting competition by restricting access by third parties to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps, while reserving such data for its own use, the Commission says.
Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for competition policy, expressed concern that “Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack”. “We will also be looking at Google’s policies on user tracking to make sure they are in line with fair competition”, she added.
Many publishers rely on online display advertising to fund free online content for consumers. In 2019, display advertising spending in the EU was estimated to be approximately €20 billion.
The Commission’s investigation will focus on display advertising, where Google offers a number of services to both advertisers and publishers. As part of its in-depth investigation, the Commission will examine in particular:
- the obligation to use Google’s services Display & Video 360 (‘DV360’) and/or Google Ads to purchase online display advertisements on YouTube;
- the obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, as well as potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube;
- the apparent favouring of Google’s ad exchange ‘AdX’ by DV360 and/or Google Ads and the potential favouring of DV360 and/or Google Ads by AdX;
- the restrictions placed by Google on the ability of third parties, such as advertisers, publishers or competing online display advertising intermediaries, to access data about user identity or user behaviour which is available to Google’s own advertising intermediation services, including the Doubleclick ID;
- Google’s announced plans to prohibit the placement of third party ‘cookies’ on Chrome and replace them with the ‘Privacy Sandbox’ set of tools, including the effects on online display advertising and online display advertising intermediation markets;
- Google’s announced plans to stop making the advertising identifier available to third parties on Android smart mobile devices when a user opts out of personalised advertising, and the effects on online display advertising and online display advertising intermediation markets.
If proven, the practices under investigation may breach EU competition rules on anticompetitive agreements between companies. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)