The UK competition watchdog on Thursday opened a alternate disquisition into Google’s illegal practices in announcement tech, following the launch of a inquiry into Google and Meta’s’ Jedi Blue’ agreement.
The Competition and Markets Authority( CMA) is probing whether Google has broken the law by confining competition in the digital advertising technology request.
Advertising technology intermediation, also known as the’ announcement tech mound’, is a complex set of services which grease the trade of online advertising space between merchandisers( publishers, like online journals and other content providers) and buyers( advertisers).
In 2019, UK advertisers spent around1.8 billion pounds on this kind of online advertising.
Google has strong positions at colorful situations of the announcement tech mound, charging freights to both publishers and advertisers, the CMA said in a statement.
” We are upset that Google may be using its position in announcement tech to favour its own services to the detriment of its rivals, of its guests and eventually of consumers,” said Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive.
” This would be bad for the millions of people who enjoy access to a wealth of free information online every day,” he added.
The CMA is assessing whether Google’s’ announcement tech mound’ practices may distort competition.
These include whether Google limited the interoperability of its announcement exchange with third- party publisher announcement waiters and/ or contractually tied these services together, making it more delicate for rival announcement waiters to contend.
The CMA is also concerned that Google may have used its publisher announcement garçon and its DSPs( demand side platforms) to immorally favour its own announcement exchange services, while taking way to count the services offered by rivals.
” Weakening competition in this area could reduce the announcement earnings of publishers, who may be forced to compromise the quality of their content to cut costs or put their content behind paywalls. It may also be raising costs for advertisers which are passed on through advanced prices for announced goods and services,” said Coscelli.
The European Commission( EC) has launched its own disquisition into Google’s practices in the announcement tech sector.
Google practices are also the subject of a complaint by the state of Texas( and other US countries) presently in the US courts.
In July 2021, the French controller closed a analogous case against Google having assessed a fine and secured commitments.
