The EU has officially decided to probe Google over whether or not it has breached EU law regarding advertising in what it sees as the US tech giant's of favouring itself on the "ad tech" supply chain over competitors.
EC Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager has been leading the EU's probes into "big tech" companies. Credit: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock
European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager announced on May 22 the investigation would decide whether or not Google was "stifling the competition" on the online market, as part of the bloc's ongoing crusade against US-based tech giants.
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The Commission's investigation will focus on display advertising where Google offers a number of services both to advertisers and publishers.
It will be looking into Google's Display & Video 360 (DV360) and Google ads to probe how advertising works on YouTube and how many of these services supposedly favour Google-backed businesses as well as "restrictions placed on third parties."
"Online advertising services are at the heart of how Google and publishers monetise their online services," Vestager said. "Google collects data to be used for targeted advertising purposes, it sells advertising space and also acts as an online advertising intermediary."
She believes Google is present at almost every part of the supply chain, which allows it to have an advantage over third-party competitors when attempting to market services on their platforms.
Estimates suggest Google may cover as much as 90% of all internet searches. Statistica data shows Google operates an 86.6% market share in online searches, compared with Bing's 6.4%.
Google has revealed it would look to "work constructively" with the EC, according to quotes published in Reuters.
According to official estimates, spending on advertising exceeded €20 million in the EU alone for 2019.
Read more: EU must be tougher on Big Tech say France, Germany & Netherlands
Vestager considers an equal supply chain paramount for fair competition.
She added: "Fair competition is important - both for advertisers to reach consumers on publishers' sites and for publishers to sell their space to advertisers, to generate revenues and funding for content.
"We will also be looking at Google's policies on user tracking to make sure they are in line with fair competition."
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