The case was brought by the European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-nation European Union, and is the fourth time Google has been charged with violating European antitrust laws in recent years. In this instance, the European Union accused Google of abusing its control of the market for buying and selling online advertising.

The U.S. Justice Department brought similar charges against Google in January, accusing the company of illegally abusing a monopoly over the technology that powers online advertising. Britain’s antitrust authority has also been investigating Google’s advertising practices.
nytimes.com/2023/06/14/technology/google-antitrust-european-union.html

Also see:

Google should break up digital ad business over competition concerns, European regulators say
European Union regulators hit Google with fresh antitrust charges Wednesday, saying the only way to satisfy competition concerns about its lucrative digital ad business is by selling off parts of the tech giant’s main moneymaker.

The unprecedented decision to push for such a breakup marks a significant escalation by Brussels in its crackdown on Silicon Valley digital giants, and follows a similar move by U.S. authorities seeking to bust Google’s alleged monopoly on the online ad ecosystem.
apnews.com/article/google-advertising-antitrust-tech-regulation-18fc5931abd30c71b85aa5d84671993a

EU officials accuse Google of antitrust violations in its ad tech business
Google’s advertising business should be broken up, European Union officials said Wednesday, alleging that the tech giant’s involvement in multiple parts of the digital advertising supply chain creates “inherent conflicts of interest” that risk harming competition.

The formal accusations mark the latest antitrust challenge to Google over its sprawling ad tech business, following a lawsuit by the US Justice Department in January that also called for a breakup of the company.
edition.cnn.com/2023/06/14/tech/google-eu-antitrust-ad-tech/index.html

EU probe: Google may have abused advertising market dominance
The European Commission’s competition authority found that Google may have abused its dominant position in the online advertising market, concluding the preliminary phase of an antitrust investigation started in 2021.

The initial finds, statement of objections in technical jargon, of the EU competition regulator were published on Wednesday (14 June) and point out that Google is suspected of breaching EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.
euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-probe-google-may-have-abused-advertising-market-dominance/

EU regulator orders Google to sell part of ad-tech business
The EU has ordered Google to sell part of its advertising business, as the bloc’s competition regulator steps up its enforcement of big tech’s monopolies.
theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/14/eu-regulator-google-sell-ad-tech-business-competition-commission>

Google faces EU break-up order over anti-competitive adtech practices
Alphabet’s Google may have to sell part of its lucrative adtech business to address concerns about anti-competitive practices, EU regulators said on Wednesday, threatening the company with its harshest regulatory penalty to date.

The European Commission set out its charges in a statement of objections to Google two years after opening an investigation into behaviours such as favouring its own advertising services, which could also lead to a fine of as much as 10% of Google’s annual global turnover.
reuters.com/technology/eu-antitrust-regulators-charge-google-anti-competitive-adtech-practices-2023-06-14/

Europe seeks breakup of Google ad business, adding to antitrust woes
European Union regulators have issued a preliminary finding that Google must sell off some of its lucrative digital advertising business, part of a sweeping antitrust complaint targeting one of the search giant’s most important revenue drivers.

In a complaint released Wednesday, E.U. competition regulators alleged that Google favors its own technology services to the detriment of competitors — an abuse of its dominant position in online ad sales.
washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/14/google-antitrust-europe/

EU files antitrust charges against Google – here’s how the ad tech at the heart of the case works by Eric Zeng, Postdoctoral Researcher in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
The European Union filed an antitrust case against Google on June 14, 2023, charging that the company abused its power in the online advertising market to disadvantage its competition. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar civil antitrust suit against Google on Jan. 24, 2023.

The online ad ecosystem is largely built around “programmatic advertising,” a system for placing advertisements from millions of advertisers on millions of websites. The system uses computers to automate bidding by advertisers on available ad spaces, often with transactions occurring faster than would be possible manually. Google runs the dominant advertising platform and has 28% market share of global advertising revenue.
theconversation.com/eu-files-antitrust-charges-against-google-heres-how-the-ad-tech-at-the-heart-of-the-case-works-207773

Remarks by Executive Vice-President Vestager on the Statement of Objections sent to Google over practices in the online advertising technology industry
Today, the Commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Google. We are concerned that Google may have illegally distorted competition in the online advertising technology industry, also known as “Adtech”.

In June 2021, the Commission opened an investigation. We wanted to assess whether Google’s conduct in the ad tech value chain violates EU competition rules.
ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_23_3288

Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Google over abusive practices in online advertising technology
The European Commission has informed Google of its preliminary view that the company breached EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry (‘adtech’). The Commission takes issue with Google favouring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers.

Google is a US multinational technology company. Google’s flagship service is its search engine Google Search. Google also operates other popular services, such as the video streaming platform YouTube or the mobile operating system Android. Google’s main source of revenue is online advertising: (i) it sells advertising space on its own websites and apps; and (ii) it intermediates between advertisers that want to place their ads online and publishers (i.e. third-party websites and apps) that can supply such space.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3207

The walls are closing in on Google and co
The international regulatory backlash against the dominance of the mega tech companies is gathering pace, with the European Union reported to be on the verge of targeting Google with massive fines and potentially a break-up of its lucrative advertising business.

Bloomberg first reported on Monday, that, after a long-running investigation that started in 2021, the European Commission may this week launch an anti-trust complaint against Google’s advertising technology model, commonly referred to as its “adtech stack,” arguing that it restricts competitors’ access to user data for online advertising while exploiting the data for its own services.

• smh.com.au/business/companies/the-walls-are-closing-in-on-google-and-co-20230613-p5dg2a.html
• theage.com.au/business/companies/the-walls-are-closing-in-on-google-and-co-20230613-p5dg2a.html
• watoday.com.au/business/companies/the-walls-are-closing-in-on-google-and-co-20230613-p5dg2a.html
• brisbanetimes.com.au/business/companies/the-walls-are-closing-in-on-google-and-co-20230613-p5dg2a.html