Google’s AdTech Business Faces Anti-Trust Probe in EU, May Have to Sell Part of its Services

On June 14, the European Commission informed Google of its preliminary view that the company breached EU antitrust rules by favouring its online display advertising technology (ad tech) services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers, and online publishers.  Some context please: The EU highlighted that the ad tech industry offers three important digital tools: Publisher ad servers: used by publishers to manage the advertising space on their platforms.  Ad buying tools: used by advertisers to manage automated ad campaigns.  Ad exchanges: here publishers and advertisers meet in real time, typically via auctions, to buy and sell display ads. Three of Google’s ad tech tools, DoubleClick For Publishers or DFP, Google Ads, and ‘DV360' (its ad-buying tools) are dominant in the EU.  Why it matters: The EU says that Google’s conduct infringes on Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position. Google’s ad tech business was also put under the microscope in the US earlier this year. According to the US Department of Justice, Google’s anti-competitive practices “forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google’s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged.” It would be reasonable to believe that said practices would have a similar effect in the EU and other parts of the world as well.  According to the EU, the only way to deal with the conflict…