Margrethe Vestager, a Danish politician who leads E.U. competition policy efforts, accused Google of wielding its considerable influence to punish competitors and boost its own services.
The move against Google is part of an expansive campaign by European authorities to limit the power of America’s big technology companies. They want to create a more comprehensive set of rules governing issues such as artificial intelligence, online privacy and competition, while punishing companies that fail to comply. Also on Wednesday, the European Parliament adopted what’s known as the E.U. AI Act, which would ban systems that pose unacceptable risks to society.
Google provides technology that enables data collection, ad buying and publishing simultaneously, E.U. regulators said, creating an inherent conflict of interest. Only a mandatory divestment of ad-tech services would solve the problem, they said.
“Google is present at almost all levels of the so-called adtech supply chain,” Vestager wrote. “Not only did this possibly harm Google’s competitors but also publishers’ interests, while also increasing advertisers’ costs.”
Google’s vice president of global ads Dan Taylor shot back with a blog post saying the E.U.’s complaints are “not new” and only relate to a “narrow part of our advertising business.”
The company’s ad tools help merchants reach customers and sell their products, and customers routinely use services from Google competitors as well, Taylor said. “Ad tech is fiercely competitive and constantly evolving,” he said.
The E.U. case adds to Google’s regulatory headaches, as the company battles multiple antitrust cases around the globe. Google’s vast empire of online ads, search and app stores has been squarely in the crosshairs of regulators from Brussels to Washington.
Its advertising business, which generates billions in annual revenue, has been a key target for regulators concerned with tech giants’ abilities to wield their power to neutralize competitors. Google’s rivals and online publishers have long alleged that the company’s grip on the high-tech tools that publishers, advertisers and brokers use to buy and sell digital advertising gives the company an unfair advantage.
The E.U.’s complaint stems from an investigation that the bloc first opened into the company’s ad business in 2021. It focused on technology tools that connect advertisers and publishers in order to display ads on websites or mobile apps. It operates two ad-buying tools, called Google Ads and DV 360, as well as a publishing server called DoubleClick For Publishers. It also offers an advertising exchange, called AdX, which operates as a digital marketplace to buy or sell advertisements.
The E.U. accused Google of using some of those ad services to boost its other ad services since at least 2014, according to the E.U.’s public complaint. When the publishing tool runs an auction to select an ad for a particular page, it favors AdX, according to the complaint. Its ad-buying tools also favored AdX, according to the complaint.
The company faces pressure in the U.S. as well. In January, the Justice Department and multiple state attorneys general brought a landmark lawsuit that argued the core ad business should be broken up because Google used its allegedly dominant position in the digital ad industry to box out rivals. The U.K.’s competition enforcer is also probing the company’s ad-tech business.
Google also is fighting an antitrust challenge to its search business, which was brought by the Justice Department under the Trump administration. It faces multiple additional lawsuits from state attorneys general from both parties, including allegations that it maintains a monopoly for distributing apps because it owns Android, an operating system used by most of the world’s smartphones.
Gerrit De Vynck contributed to this report.
