The European Union is a political and economic partnership of 28 (soon to be 27 after Britain leaves) countries that seeks to tear down trade, business and other social barriers. It has a council, parliament and commission and uses a common currency called the euro. EU Threatens to Break Up Google’s $200bn Ad Business.
The European Commission is the EU?s primary executive body and wields the most day-to-day authority. It proposes laws, manages the budget and represents the EU at summits and negotiations. EU Threatens to Break Up Google’s $200bn Ad Business.
The EU?s competition commission has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the ad sector.
It has been 14 years since London-based shopping site Foundem first accused Google of abusing its dominant position in search, but a new threat could see the company forced to sell parts of its advertising technology business. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has issued a statement of objections accusing Google of favoring its own advertising technology services over those of rivals and distorting competition.
The Commission said its preliminary view after two years of investigation is that only a mandatory divestment by Google would satisfy its concerns. The company is active on both sides of the ad-selling market through its publisher ad server and ad exchange, creating an inherent conflict of interest.
While previous cases have ended with fines and requirements that companies stop abusive behavior, this is the first time regulators have threatened to break up a big tech firm. If Google does have to sell off parts of its ad business, it will be another blow to its bottom line.
Google could be forced to sell parts of its ad business.
Google is facing a potentially unprecedented blow in its efforts to fend off regulators seeking to break up its lucrative advertising business. The 27-nation bloc?s top competition enforcer has told the US firm it may have to sell off parts of its ad business to address antitrust concerns.
The EU has alleged that Google, which controls a broad swath of tools used by advertisers and publishers to facilitate digital advertising, abused its dominant position in the market since 2014. It allegedly gave its own proprietary ad exchange AdX a competitive advantage over rivals by allowing its publisher ad management tools to automatically route advertisers? bids to the auction.
Vestager said that a behavioral remedy was unlikely to work and that forcing Google to sell part of its ad sales services could be the only way to address its concerns.
Google?s search engine market share is in excess of 90pc.
Google is king of the internet, but its dominance does not necessarily mean there are no alternatives. Some players are trying to buck the trend, including ad-free search engine Neeva and privacy-focused browser Brave.
Their algorithm prioritised pages based on how many other websites linked to them, which produced more useful results than existing search engines that used keyword searches and content analysis.
Google now handles around nine billion searches a day, and its parent company Alphabet recently broke the $200bn mark in revenue. However, the tech giant has been struggling with falling daily user growth and threats to its ad business.
The EU?s competition commissioner has threatened to break up Google?s $200bn ad business.
Google has grown from its initial search engine and is now one of the most important forces behind the Internet?s development, to the point where its name has entered the lexicon as a verb: ‘to google’.
In 2015, the firm reorganized to become the parent company Alphabet, with Page as CEO and Brin as president. Google remained the flagship, but other operations such as the Android mobile operating system and video-sharing service YouTube became separate companies. Other subsidiaries include Google Maps, the online calendar service Google Calendar and the digital assistant Google Home. The firm has also made a number of significant acquisitions including the social-media service Instagram and the mobile app maker Waze needs read more hear.
