EU unlikely to issue break-up order to Google for now
EU competition authorities are considering ordering Alphabet’s Google to end anti-competitive practices in its adtech business. However, they will not order a break-up as they have previously warned, people with knowledge of the matter said.
European Union regulators are expected to make a decision in the coming months with a hefty fine after competition authority chief Margrethe Vestager threatened to shut down Google’s lucrative adtech division last year.
If the threat had actually been carried out in what would be a first in an antitrust case, it would have been the harshest legal penalty yet for Google, after Vestager accused the company of favoring its own advertising services.
But competition authorities are unlikely to issue a break-up order because of its complexity, the sources said.
If Google continues its anti-competitive practices, a breakup order could follow at a later date, the researchers said, citing a precedent set two decades ago when Microsoft was involved.
The European Commission’s decision may still change, they added.
They say it is unlikely the EU will make a decision before Vestager steps down in November, but it is still theoretically possible.
The Commission and Google, which has been hit with a total of €8.25 billion in EU anti-monopoly fines over the past decade, declined to comment.
Google’s advertising revenue in 2023, including from search, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Ad Manager, AdMob and AdSense, was $237.85 billion, or 77% of total revenue. It is the world’s dominant digital advertising platform.
Vestager had suggested that Google could sell its sales tools DFP and its own ad exchange AdX due to the conflicts of interest, as it also owns ad buying tools Google Ads and DV360, which places bids on ad exchanges.
She said the company had allegedly unfairly favoured its own advertising platform AdX in auctions and abused its dominant position since 2014.
Google is currently the target of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. According to the court, Google attempted to monopolize the market for publishers’ ad servers and advertisers’ ad networks, and attempted to dominate the market for ad exchanges, which lie between them.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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