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The
stakes are higher for Google in this latest clash with
regulators as it concerns the company's biggest money maker,
with the adtech business accounting for 79% of total revenue
last year.
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.
The European Commission set out its charges in a statement of
objections, two years after opening an investigation.
EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Google may have to
sell part of its adtech business because a behavioural remedy is
unlikely to be effective at stopping the anti-competitive
practices.
"Of course I know this is a strong statement but it is a
reflection of the nature of the markets, how they function and
also why a behavioural commitment seemed to be out of the
question," she told a news conference.
She said the EU had closely cooperated with competition
authorities in the United States and the UK.
The Commission said it took issue with Google favouring its own
online display advertising technology services to the detriment
of competing providers of advertising technology services,
advertisers and online publishers.
It said Google has abused its dominance since 2014 by favouring
its own ad exchange AdX in the ad selection auction by its
dominant publisher ad server DFP, and also by favouring AdX in
the way its ad buying tools Google Ads and DV360 place bids on
ad exchanges.
Google is the world's dominant digital advertising platform with
a 28% market share of global ad revenue, according to research
firm Insider Intelligence.
Google had sought to settle the case three months after the
investigation was opened but regulators grew frustrated with the
slow pace and the lack of substantial concessions, a person
familiar with the matter told Reuters previously.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Sudip
Kar-Gupta;Editing by Philip Blenkinsop, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Kirsten
Donovan)
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