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The
comments from Google's director Oliver Bethell and its vice
president for global ads Dan Taylor came after the U.S. tech
giant responded to EU charges issued to the company in June.
"We are opposed to divestment. We don't think that's the right
outcome for this case. We think this is a tremendously efficient
part of our business," Bethell told reporters.
"And that kind of remedy would be disproportionate in the
circumstances and we have explained that to the Commission in
our response to their statement of objections," he said.
The European Commission said Google has since 2014 abused its
dominance in the online advertising technology industry via its
market power on both sides of the supply chain.
It has done that, the Commission says, by ensuring that both its
intermediation tools on the buy-side and on the sell-side would
favor its own ad exchange AdX in the matching auctions.
Taylor said it was common practice in the industry to serve both
advertisers and publishers, with a number of rivals doing the
same.
"There are many firms that have competing adtech businesses with
us, Amazon, Microsoft, Criteo, Comcast and others," he told
reporters.
"They offer ad platforms and tools like ours that cater to both
advertisers and publishers. Now it is common to do this in the
industry because it benefits both advertisers and publishers,"
Taylor said.
"Integrated technology stacks will make it easier to provide
high quality connections that match the right advertiser to the
right ad slot on a publisher page."
The stakes are higher for Google in this latest clash with
regulators as it concerns a portion of the company's advertising
business which accounted for 79% of total revenue last year and
making it its biggest money maker.
Its 2022 advertising revenue, including from search services,
Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube adverts, Google Ad
Manager, AdMob and AdSense, amounted to $224.5 billion.
Google can ask for a closed hearing to plead its case before
senior EU and national antitrust officials before a ruling is
issued, which could come next year.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise Heavens, Kirsten
Donovan)
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