EU Commissioner for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age – Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager held a virtual press briefing at the EU Commission headquarters on November 26, 2020, in Brussels, Belgium.
During the briefing, Vestager addressed the European Union’s charges against Google for breaching antitrust rules in advertising technology, specifically in adtech. The EU is considering the option of breaking up certain parts of Google’s business to address its concerns.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, has preliminarily concluded that Google is dominant in the European market for publisher ad servers and programmatic ad-buying tools for the open web. The commission also accuses Google of abusing its dominant position since 2014.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has been given the opportunity to respond to the commission’s concerns in writing and can request an oral hearing to present its comments.
The commission has suggested that Google may need to divest part of its services to comply with competition rules in the EU. This would be the first time the commission has sought to split a business.
EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager stated, “The Commission’s preliminary view is therefore that only the mandatory divestment by Google of part of its services would address its competition concerns.”
Vestager further explained, “Google collects users’ data, sells advertising space, and acts as an online advertising intermediary. It is present at almost all levels of the adtech supply chain. Our preliminary concern is that Google may have used its market position to favor its own intermediation services, potentially harming competitors, publishers, and increasing costs for advertisers. If confirmed, these practices would violate our competition rules.”
Google has not yet commented on the charges.
Addressing the conflict of interest, Vestager stated, “Google is in every part of this supply chain.” However, she acknowledged the need to find the least intrusive remedy, considering the inherent conflict of interest. Vestager believes that Google’s ownership of the entire value chain is necessary to address this conflict.
In premarket trading, shares of Alphabet were slightly down by less than 1%.
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