Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Khushi
The European Union has opened a new investigation into Google’s advertising practices. It shall determine whether Google has favoured its display ads technology over competitors and whether it has violated antitrust rules.
About 80 percent of Google’s revenue comes from advertising on its network of products, including its search engine and YouTube, which generated about $147 billion last year.
The tech company has already been fined three times in three years for anticompetitive behavior The company has repeatedly dismissed the EU’s findings, and it appeared in court to appeal the first fine earlier this year.
Margret Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, expressed concern that Google had “made it more difficult for rival online advertising services to compete” by monopolizing the market supply chain in a statement Tuesday.
The European Commission plans to investigate whether advertisers are unfairly compelled to use Google’s services such as AdX and DV360 as part of its probe.
The European competition chief added that the Commission will also review Google’s policy on user tracking to “ensure they are in line with fair competition”. Officials also expect to examine Google’s plans to delete third-party advertising cookies from Google Chrome, a move that sent the advertising industry into a tailspin when it was announced in January 2020.
