The European Union has launched an investigation to determine whether Google exerts too much control over the sprawling online marketing industry, in which advertisers can surveil, target and influence consumers through nearly any tech platform in which they engage.
The Silicon Valley company is present “at almost all levels of the supply chain for online display advertising,” said Margrethe Vestager, an executive vice president at the European Commission and a longtime critic of Big Tech. Her investigation will focus on whether Google’s many footholds in the video-advertising supply chain allow it to boost its own services and downgrade competing ones. The company’s data collection tools, which hoover up vast quantities of user information, could give it an unfair advantage, she added.
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Google investigated over ‘dominance’ in ad market
The European Commission has opened an investigation into whether Google is dominating the online-advertising market at the expense of its rivals.
It will examine Google’s role in collecting data, selling advertising space and acting as an online-advertising intermediary.
The commission is concerned the technology giant is making it hard for other online advertisers to compete.
Google has said it will co-operate with the inquiry.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57567799
EU investigates Google’s conduct in digital ad tech sector
European Union regulators have launched a fresh antitrust investigation of Google, this time over whether the U.S. tech giant is stifling competition in digital advertising technology.
The European Commission said Tuesday that it has opened a formal investigation into whether Google violated the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of rival publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.
https://apnews.com/article/europe-technology-business-2c7fbf1df0bf99c53a1ebabc67a97ebc
Google’s Internet Ad Dominance Draws Fresh E.U. Antitrust Inquiry
European Union regulators took aim at the heart of Google’s business model on Tuesday, announcing that the Silicon Valley giant is the subject of a new antitrust investigation for potentially abusing its dominance in the online advertising market to stifle competition.
The investigation is part of a broader push by the European authorities to clamp down on the world’s largest technology companies. Amazon, Apple and Facebook are also the subject of antitrust actions by the 27-nation bloc, and the European Union is drafting new antitrust and digital services laws to further tighten oversight of Big Tech.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/business/google-antitrust-european-union.html