Canada’s antitrust watchdog announced Thursday that it is suing Google for alleged anticompetitive conduct in the tech giant’s online advertising business and is requiring the company to sell two ad tech services and pay a penalty. .
The Competition Bureau said the action was necessary after an investigation into Google found that the company had “illegally” tied together its ad tech tools to maintain its dominant market position.
The matter now goes to the Competition Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body that hears cases brought by the Competition Commissioner for breaches of competition law.
The agency is asking the court to order Google to sell its ad server DoubleClick for Publishers and ad exchange AdX. Google is estimated to hold 90% market share in publisher ad servers, 70% in advertiser networks, 60% in demand-side platforms, and 50% in ad exchanges.
The bureau said this advantage has stifled competition from rivals, stifled innovation, inflated advertising costs and reduced publishers’ revenues.
“Google has engaged in conduct that constrains market participants to use its own ad tech tools, excludes competitors, and distorts the competitive process,” Competition Commissioner Matthew Boswell said in a statement. He abused his position.”
But Google insists that the online advertising market is a highly competitive field.
Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global advertising, said in a statement that the agency’s allegations “ignore the intense competition in which ad buyers and sellers have ample choice.”
The statement added that Google intends to defend itself against the allegations.
U.S. regulators seek federal judge dismantling google to prevent the company From continuing to play squash The search began through the company’s dominant search engine after a court found the company had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.
The proposed breakup, which emerged in a 23-page document filed this month by the U.S. Department of Justice, would include the sale of Google’s industry-leading web browser Chrome and restrictions that would prevent Android from favoring its own search engine. They are calling for drastic punishment, including the imposition of .
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in august “Google is a monopoly and has acted as a monopolist in order to maintain its monopoly,” he said, outlining a timeline for a trial on the proposed remedies next spring, with a decision expected by August 2025. He said that there is.
Mehta also revealed that Google paid Apple and other partners about $26 billion in 2021 to make its search engine the default search engine in internet browsers.
His judgment arose from the following Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit The lawsuit was first filed against Google in October 2020 during the first Trump administration.
Google has already said it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling, but the tech giant will have to wait until Mehta finalizes any remedies before doing so. George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University who served as chief economist for the Justice Department’s antitrust division for much of the 1970s, predicts the appeal process could take up to five years.
And in January 2023, the Department of Justice and several states filed another lawsuit For what Google claims is an illegal monopoly on online advertising.
