UK regulator accuses Google of preliminarily limiting competition in online advertising field

The act of favoring oneself restrains competition.

In the perspective of the CMA, the sector of digital advertising comprises diverse intermediaries who facilitate the transactions involving the sale of online ad space on websites or mobile apps between two main parties: vendors, known as publishers, and buyers, known as advertisers.

Google takes on the role of an intermediary at three crucial points within the advertisement ecosystem: it manages ad purchasing tools for advertisers, Google Ads and DV360; it offers a publisher ad server for publishers, DoubleClick For Publishers (DFP); and it also administers an ad exchange, AdX, which accepts bid requests from publishers, replies from advertisers, and then executes an auction to connect the two sides.

The preliminary conclusions of the CMA focus on the act of anti-competitive “self-preferencing” by Google. Since at least 2015, Google has misused its dominant positions through the management of both its purchasing tools and publisher ad server to enhance the market position of AdX and safeguard it against competition from other exchanges, as per the CMA’s report.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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