The French competition authority accuses Google of abusing its dominant position in the ad server market. The group now has to pay a fine of 220 million euros for this; Google itself has also offered changes.
In France, Google pays a fine of 220 million euros imposed by the antitrust office for giving preference to its own services when allocating online advertising space. The US company did not deny the allegations and the fine was now ordered as part of a settlement, the French competition authority in Paris said.
The cartel office had been contacted by several publishing groups, including the international media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and the French Figaro publishing house. They accused Google of abusing its dominant market position.
Google’s advertising sales business accounted for 13 percent of parent company Alphabet’s sales of almost $183 billion (€150 billion) last year.
DoubleClick and Google Ad Exchange
In this specific case, the question is whether the search engine giant has unlawfully exploited its dominance in the digital advertising business. Since taking over the advertising specialist DoubleClick in 2009, Google has operated a platform for advertising (“DoubleClick for Publisher”), which is now operated under the Google brand. This platform is used by many large online publishers and publishers to offer advertising space for sale. The complaint was that Google customers were given an advantage in the actual allocation of advertising space at the advertising auction house Google Ad Exchange (AdX). Google customers were partly provided with information about competing bids.
“The Authority has found that Google has granted preferential treatment to its own technologies offered under the Google Ad Manager brand(…),” the competition authority said. These practices are “particularly serious” because those disadvantaged include publishers whose economic model has already been seriously weakened by the decline in sales of newspaper subscriptions.
Google changes model
In the settlement, Google also agreed to change its behavior and make it easier for competitors to use its online advertising tools. The changes were accepted by the authority. “We will test and develop these changes over the coming months before rolling them out more broadly, including globally,” Google said.
The French competition authority recalled that companies with a position like Google have a special responsibility. “These very serious practices disadvantaged competition in the emerging online advertising market and allowed Google to not only maintain but also expand its dominant position,” said Isabelle de Silva, chairwoman of the French competition authority, according to the statement.
“We believe we provide valuable services and compete. However, we are committed to proactively working with regulators to make improvements to our products,” the US group said. They have been working with the French authorities for the past two years and now want to improve access to data or increase the flexibility of Google Ad Manager.
It is still unclear whether and how the comparison will affect other markets, as complaints against the dominance of the DoubleClick platform had also surfaced outside France. Experts now expect that these obligations from the settlement will develop into a template that publishers in many other countries can also demand.
