Google: The EU Commission accuses online advertising of violating competition law

The Brussels competition watchdogs have put Google in their crosshairs and are investigating potential violations in the online advertising market. As announced by the EU Commission on Wednesday, it is initially assumed that the US company has abused its dominant market position “at least since 2014”. As a consequence, Google could be forced to divest some of its services, the Commission said. Google has already signaled resistance.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said she was “concerned that Google may have distorted competition in the online advertising industry, also known as adtech.” Adtech includes software solutions that are used in the design of marketing and advertising campaigns. The allegations by the Brussels authorities against Google are that competing providers were deliberately disadvantaged.

Online advertising is the core of Google’s income, which, in addition to the search service of the same name, also operates the video platform YouTube and the mobile operating system Android. The group’s offerings include, for example, Google Ads, a service for purchasing advertising, and the AdX advertising exchange.

Google rejects the EU Commission’s criticism

However, Google vigorously rejected the criticism from Brussels. “We do not agree with the views of the European Commission and will respond accordingly,” the Mountain View, California-based company said in a statement. Google goes on to say that the EU investigation only concerns a tiny part of online advertising technologies and that its content is “not new”.

This points to a possible legal dispute and, in extreme cases, could lead to a new fine against Google. The EU Commission has already imposed fines on the company three times since 2017, which together add up to eight billion euros.