While Google may have gotten a win in the EU this week as the General Court in Luxembourg overturned a previous $1.65 billion AdSense fine, the company is now facing yet another antitrust loss regarding its AdX ad platform.
According to a report from Reuters which sources insiders familiar with the European Union’s antitrust investigation into Google’s dominant position in digital advertising, the company’s recently proposed plan to avoid a full-blown charge, which included the sale of its AdX ad platform, is being met with cynicism.
The EU Commission took up a complaint from the European Publishers Council levied at Google back in February 2022 which alleges that “Since its acquisition of DoubleClick in 2008, Google has embarked on a barrage of unlawful tactics to foreclose competition in ad tech.” Over the past two years Google and the EU have been in a ‘will-they, won’t-they’ legal battle as the regulatory body investigates Google favoring of its advertising services over others, leading to erosion of fair competition in the market.
However, to avoid being drawn into a fourth contentious antitrust battle with international regulatory bodies, Google offered an unprecedented proposal from the company that involved divesting from its AdX platform.
Unfortunately, the same group of publishers who originally forged the compliant, find Google’s proposal lacking in the face of current realities where Google’s decades long practices have cemented its position in digital advertising. The European Publishers Council are looking for broader divestments from Google that include it publisher ad server (DFP) to break the company’s perceived stranglehold on both market and mindshare in the digital advertising sector.
Despite its offer, Google still feels the EU began its investigation on a flaw premise. “As we have said before, the European Commission’s case about our third-party display advertising products rests on flawed interpretations of the ad-tech sector, which is fiercely competitive and rapidly evolving. We remain committed to this business,” a Google spokesperson said.
While the Publishers Council are dissuaded by Google’s proposal, their own broader divestments suggestion may also be pass on by the EU as it typically opts for fines and regulations in cases such as these.
