The European Commission is once again looking into Google and this time it is the company’s advertising business. European officials have once again found evidence of advertising abuse.
Since Google is at virtually every stage of the so-called adtech supply chain, the company is leveraging its dominant market position to favor its own middleman services. Interestingly, the US Department of Justice has also sued Google over its advertising business and wants to divide it up as it is illegally monopolizing the market.
Google has set up services for both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, Google has created an ad exchange called AdX, which is often favored by the other two services related to advertisers and publishers. In short, Google is on the buying and selling side.
Firstly, AdX is able to bid after all bidders have already placed their bids and secondly, Google is notified in advance of the best offers from competitors. On the supply side, Google Ads bids almost exclusively on its AdX trading platform.
European officials strongly believe that Google won’t act alone, so the European Commission must step in and potentially dismantle Google’s advertising business. Google still has time to appeal, but if it fails, it faces a potential breakup and a fine of 10% of its annual global revenue.
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