LONDON (AP) – European Union regulators have launched a new antitrust investigation against Google, this time on whether the US tech giant is stifling competition in digital advertising technology.
The European Commission announced Tuesday that it had opened a formal investigation to investigate whether Google has violated the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of competing publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.
The Commission, the executive branch of the EU and the bloc’s highest antitrust authority, is examining in particular whether Google restricts third-party access to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps.
“Online advertising services are at the heart of how Google and publishers monetize their online services,” said Margrethe Vestager, Head of Competition and Executive Vice President for Digital at the EU Commission. Google collects data to be used for targeted advertising while it also sells ad space and acts as an intermediary between online advertisers and publishers, she said.
“We are concerned that Google has made it difficult for competing online advertising services to compete in what is known as the ad tech stack,” said Vestager.
An email requesting a comment has been sent to the Google press office.
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