Canada's antitrust watchdog said Thursday it is suing Google over alleged anti-competitive conduct in the tech giant's online advertising business and wants the company to sell two of its ad tech services and pay a fine.
The Competition Bureau said such action was necessary because its investigation into Google found that the company had “unlawfully” bundled together its ad technology tools to maintain its dominant position in the market.
The case is now going to the Competition Tribunal, which is a quasi-judicial body that hears cases brought forward by the Competition Commissioner regarding non-compliance with the Competition Act.
The bureau is asking the tribunal to order Google to sell its publisher ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers, and its ad exchange, AdX. It estimates that Google has 90% market share in publisher ad servers, 70% in advertiser networks, 60% in demand-side platforms, and 50% in ad exchanges.
This dominance has discouraged competition from rivals, stifled innovation, increased advertising costs and reduced publisher revenues, the bureau said.
“Google has abused its dominant position in online advertising in Canada, allowing market participants to use their own ad tech tools, driving out competitors and distorting the competitive process,” Competition Commissioner Matthew Boswell said in a statement. Prevents from.”
However, Google says that the online advertising market is a highly competitive area.
Dan Taylor, Google's vice president of global ads, said in a statement that the bureau's complaint “ignores the intense competition where ad buyers and sellers have plenty of choices.”
The statement said Google intends to defend itself against the allegations.
US regulators want a federal judge to break google To stop the company from continuing the squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.
The proposed breakup, proposed in a 23-page document filed this month by the U.S. Justice Department, seeks wide-ranging penalties that include the sale of Google's industry-leading Chrome web browser and Android in favor of its own search engine. This would include imposing sanctions to prevent it. ,
US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in august That “Google is a monopolist, and has acted as a monopolist to maintain its monopoly.” They outlined a timeline for a trial on the proposed measures next spring and planned to issue a decision by August 2025.
Mehta also found that Google paid Apple and other partners about $26 billion in 2021 to ensure that its search engine would be the default on Internet browsers.
His rule arose from a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit The suit against Google was first filed in October 2020 during the first Trump administration.
Google has already said it plans to appeal Mehta's decision, but the tech giant will have to wait until a remedy is finalized before doing so. The appeals process could take up to five years, predicts Cornell University law professor George Hay, who was chief economist for the Justice Department's antitrust division for much of the 1970s.
And in January 2023, the Justice Department and several states filed a separate lawsuit It was claimed against Google that it had an illegal monopoly on online advertising.