The European Commission today said it has begun investigating Google for "possible anticompetitive conduct" in the market for online advertising technology.
The EC announcement said the formal antitrust investigation will "assess whether Google has violated EU competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services in the so-called 'ad tech' supply chain, to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers." The EC said it will "examine whether Google is distorting competition by restricting access by third parties to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps, while reserving such data for its own use."
Chrome and Android figure into the investigation. The EC said it will investigate "Google's announced plans to prohibit the placement of third-party 'cookies' on Chrome and replace them with the 'Privacy Sandbox' set of tools, including the effects on online display advertising and online display advertising intermediation markets." Google's Privacy Sandbox includes FLoC, or Federated Learning of Cohorts, a technology that would replace third-party cookies for advertising purposes.
Regarding Android, the EC said it will examine "Google's announced plans to stop making the advertising identifier available to third parties on Android smart mobile devices when a user opts out of personalized advertising, and the effects on online display advertising and online display advertising intermediation markets." The EC said it will also probe Google-imposed requirements that force advertisers to use certain Google services in order to purchase ads on YouTube.
Google dominates supply chain, Vestager says
Noting that "Google is present at almost all levels of the supply chain for online display advertising," EC Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the European government is "concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack." Vestager is the EC's executive vice president in charge of competition policy.
Vestager said the investigation will look into "Google's policies on user tracking to make sure they are in line with fair competition." She said that "Google collects data to be used for targeted advertising purposes, it sells advertising space, and also acts as an online advertising intermediary."
Google defended its practices in a statement sent to Ars and other news organizations. "Thousands of European businesses use our advertising products to reach new customers and fund their websites every single day," Google said. "They choose them because they're competitive and effective. We will continue to engage constructively with the European Commission to answer their questions and demonstrate the benefits of our products to European businesses and consumers."
Google’s FLoC controversy
FloC has been criticized by groups concerned about user privacy, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Rival browser-makers don't like it, either, as Firefox-maker Mozilla told The Verge recently: "We don't buy into the assumption that the industry needs billions of data points about people, that are collected and shared without their understanding, to serve relevant advertising." Browser-maker Brave said that "the worst aspect of FLoC is that it materially harms user privacy, under the guise of being privacy-friendly."
Google has said it developed the Privacy Sandbox in order to replace third-party cookies "with viable privacy-first alternatives, developed alongside ecosystem partners, that will help publishers and advertisers succeed while also protecting people's privacy as they move across the web." Google argues that its planned system is more protective of user privacy than current methods because it tracks groups of people instead of individual users.
As we wrote in January 2020, the planned system "uses browser-based machine learning and other techniques to determine user interests and aggregate them with other users." Google could roll out the new system and drop Chrome support for tracking cookies by 2022.
We covered Google's planned Android change earlier this month. It would start rolling out late in 2021 and, when users opt out of personalized ads, will show apps "a string of zeros" instead of the user's advertising ID.
Practices “may breach EU competition rules”
The EC today said that "Google provides several advertising technology services that intermediate between advertisers and publishers in order to display ads on websites or mobile apps" and that the investigation will focus on display advertising. Besides the Chrome and Android portions mentioned earlier, the specific Google practices that the EC said it will investigate are as follows:
- The obligation to use Google's services Display & Video 360 ('DV360') and/or Google Ads to purchase online display advertisements on YouTube
- The obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, and potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube
- The apparent favoring of Google's ad exchange "AdX" by DV360 and/or Google Ads and the potential favoring of DV360 and/or Google Ads by AdX
- The restrictions placed by Google on the ability of third parties, such as advertisers, publishers, or competing online display advertising intermediaries, to access data about user identity or user behavior which is available to Google's own advertising intermediation services, including the DoubleClick ID
"If proven, the practices under investigation may breach EU competition rules on anticompetitive agreements between companies," the announcement said.
Previous fines totaled $9.5 billion
The EC previously fined Google $2.7 billion in 2017 for abusing its search dominance "by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service"; $5.1 billion in 2018 for "impos[ing] illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators to cement its dominant position in general Internet search"; and $1.69 billion in 2019 for "imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites which prevented Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites."
The EC and Google have fought for years over Android's default search engine. Google was forced to offer a "ballot" that lets users pick a search engine from a list, but the company initially charged its competitors for the right to appear on that list. Google this month finally agreed to make the ballot "free for eligible search providers."
Correction: This article originally said that Google's Privacy Sandbox and FLoC are the same thing. The article has been corrected to state that FLoC is part of the Privacy Sandbox.
96 Reader Comments
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
It's an abuse of Chrome's dominance, and turns Chrome into an intrusive spy cataloguing your interests. Calling it a "Privacy" sandbox is blatantly misleading when you are diverging so drastically from other browsers, and undermining the browser's relationship with the user.
I am actually surprised that the EU managed to turn their attention to it before it even launches. Usually regulators are years behind the curve. Good to see them on the ball for once.
Last edited by Cathbadhian on Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:38 am
You mean, it isn't already? :O
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
I'm not sure that is true. Google doesn't have the data either. The data stays on your device. What advertisers have access to is non identifiable data that puts you in to large cohorts. From what I understand all advertisers will use that including google.
I don't see how google has a leg up here....
The obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, and potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube
Uh, am i misunderstanding something? That sounds like they expect YouTube to incorporate other company's ad frameworks into their own webpages.
I don't see a problem with forcing divesture of YouTube, but until they do that seems like an odd expectation. "I want to advertise something on your site, so you need to implement this code for me"
The obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, and potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube
Uh, am i misunderstanding something? That sounds like they expect YouTube to incorporate other company's ad frameworks into their own webpages.
I don't see a problem with forcing divesture of YouTube, but until they do that seems like an odd expectation. "I want to advertise something on your site, so you need to implement this code for me"
When you're the dominant player in one market and you start using that dominance to prop yourself up on another market, you may be forced to open third-party access to your stuff, in the interests of competition. It's one of the classic "remedies" for anti-competitive behaviour.
Last edited by tigas on Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:51 am
The obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, and potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube
Uh, am i misunderstanding something? That sounds like they expect YouTube to incorporate other company's ad frameworks into their own webpages.
I don't see a problem with forcing divesture of YouTube, but until they do that seems like an odd expectation. "I want to advertise something on your site, so you need to implement this code for me"
Even if Youtube was severed from Google, what's stopping the new Youtube from simply staying with google services or starting their own API for advertising and saying, you need to use this framework in order to advertise on our site?
The obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, and potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube
Uh, am i misunderstanding something? That sounds like they expect YouTube to incorporate other company's ad frameworks into their own webpages.
I don't see a problem with forcing divesture of YouTube, but until they do that seems like an odd expectation. "I want to advertise something on your site, so you need to implement this code for me"
Its the same thing they are trying with news articles.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
They just have to put some elbow-grease into innovative growth-hacking synergies that leverage synergistic innovation to innovate innovatively.
For real though, if Google can’t hack it and figure out a way to adapt and keep their business afloat without advertising, then by Silicon Valley rules, they just failed and didn’t want to succeed hard enough and deserve to go under, so screw ‘em.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
Frankly, I'd much rather see what data Google can gather be extremely limited and flatten the playing field even more so that Google is allowed to gather only an exceptionally limited subset of data and can be heavily fined if it exceeds that mandate. They would then be required to sell that data to anyone with the money to buy it, and couldn't retain any for its exclusive use.
That would at least partially address some privacy issues while at the same time playing fair with its advertising.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
You can't separate adverting from Google or Facebook because advertising is the revenue source it would be like telling Ford it has to stop selling cars.
You clearly have no idea how these companies make their money and what is a major part of their business and what isn't.
You mean, it isn't already? :O
Leave Chrome alone, use Firefox.
The obligation to use Google Ad Manager to serve online display advertisements on YouTube, and potential restrictions placed by Google on the way in which services competing with Google Ad Manager are able to serve online display advertisements on YouTube
Uh, am i misunderstanding something? That sounds like they expect YouTube to incorporate other company's ad frameworks into their own webpages.
I don't see a problem with forcing divesture of YouTube, but until they do that seems like an odd expectation. "I want to advertise something on your site, so you need to implement this code for me"
It's different when you are creating a platform, or network. Particularly when you reach a certain level of market dominance.
Imagine if vertically integrated rail lines started preventing trains from carrying their competitions cargo. If Amazon bought a majority share in UPS and FedEx, then told them to stop shipping packages from Walmart. A major point of anti-monopoly laws is that at times it makes great business sense to leverage your platforms and muscle out the competition, but when you do society doesn't benefit. Only your pocketbook.
Alternative: I do know, and am explicitly proposing breaking their business model with a result of them becoming much smaller companies. Which is more-or-less what I said. In Google's case, I didn't propose splitting advertising because I do understand that doing so would kill them entirely. In Facebook's case, that may also be true, but "meh?"
Smaller? it would kill them just like if McDonalds was banned from selling fast food from tomorrow. FB sells it's product (users) to it's customers (advertisers) FB isn't an advertiser they sell to advertisers just like Ars sells us to advertisers.
I agree with you regarding data security; however the EU seems to be concerned that Google is protecting access to that data by third parties while having full use of it themselves, which is a valid competition issue.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
As I understand it, FLoC shares it's data with the website you are visiting. So if you're visiting a website not showing Google Ads, Google isn't even getting the FLoC token. But that website is. Google is going further, and attempting to detect ads on the page before granting access to the token -- which is never going to stop bad actors from finding workarounds and thus feels like security theater.
Alternative: I do know, and am explicitly proposing breaking their business model with a result of them becoming much smaller companies. Which is more-or-less what I said. In Google's case, I didn't propose splitting advertising because I do understand that doing so would kill them entirely. In Facebook's case, that may also be true, but "meh?"
Smaller? it would kill them just like if McDonalds was banned from selling fast food from tomorrow. FB sells it's product (users) to it's customers (advertisers) FB isn't an advertiser they sell to advertisers just like Ars sells us to advertisers.
You seem focused on FB, where I've already expressed the opinion "let them die". That's probably not fair, but I'm at peace with that.
My other examples aren't clear-cut death sentences IMHO.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
Frankly, I'd much rather see what data Google can gather be extremely limited and flatten the playing field even more so that Google is allowed to gather only an exceptionally limited subset of data and can be heavily fined if it exceeds that mandate. They would then be required to sell that data to anyone with the money to buy it, and couldn't retain any for its exclusive use.
That would at least partially address some privacy issues while at the same time playing fair with its advertising.
At face value what you're suggesting doesn't really address either privacy ("required to sell that data to anyone") nor competition (Google still has the grossly unfair advantage of Chrome being the best information-gathering tool).
What the hell is the EU thinking? I'm onboard with Google facing antitrust actions, but opening up personal data to any third party that wants it is absolutely horrifying.
What the hell is the EU thinking? I'm onboard with Google facing antitrust actions, but opening up personal data to any third party that wants it is absolutely horrifying.
Well that is that whole level playing field. Google has access to that data and is using it. So it is either Google loses access to said data or the competition gets to use it as well.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
I think that's pretty much what the byline is saying though, EC is saying it's uncompetitive because Google is not sharing the data it has with third party advertisers, the implication is that Google already has the data
What the hell is the EU thinking? I'm onboard with Google facing antitrust actions, but opening up personal data to any third party that wants it is absolutely horrifying.
Privacy and competition are separate issues. Google is only enforcing privacy restrictions on companies that aren't them, which is giving themselves an unfair advantage. Governments can fight that kind of behavior while also strengthening privacy laws at the same time.
Google is doing this out of necessity.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
I think that's pretty much what the byline is saying though, EC is saying it's uncompetitive because Google is not sharing the data it has with third party advertisers, the implication is that Google already has the data
At this point in the game FLoC isnt even finalized, is receiving input from everyone, and won't be in use till next year. When it goes live, if ever, other advertisers are free to look up the cohort a person is in to serve "relevant" ads.
Problem is no one wants it, and others already block 3rd party cookies to begin with.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
They just have to put some elbow-grease into innovative growth-hacking synergies that leverage synergistic innovation to innovate innovatively.
For real though, if Google can’t hack it and figure out a way to adapt and keep their business afloat without advertising, then by Silicon Valley rules, they just failed and didn’t want to succeed hard enough and deserve to go under, so screw ‘em.
Unfortunately it's hard to monetize something like search or YouTube without ads, even DuckDuckGo has ads so looks like that's pretty much the only option. Google does need to figure out how to do ads without as much data collection though.
What the hell is the EU thinking? I'm onboard with Google facing antitrust actions, but opening up personal data to any third party that wants it is absolutely horrifying.
Well that is that whole level playing field. Google has access to that data and is using it. So it is either Google loses access to said data or the competition gets to use it as well.
I'd rather see Google broken up than giving everyone access to it. Just look at what we get with Facebook who gives people access to the data. It's gets stolen and misused on a regular basis. Then again, I guess that would give me the final push I need to get rid of Google services for good.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
Uh, Ushio is right. Tell us exactly how Android would work, split off from the parts of the company that actually make any money. If you don't let them require their apps as part of Android branding, and you don't let them fund it with advertising from elsewhere in the company... how is Android development supposed to be funded?.
You can't just tell a company they have to spend money to develop something and then just give it away for free.
None of what you said makes any sense. Splitting AWS off from Amazon... why? What synergies between AWS and the rest of their business are they using unfairly against competitors? None that I can see. Just because it makes a lot of money has nothing to with whether it is a target for antitrust. This kind of thinking just seems to be populist big-tech bashing, "I don't like that they make so much money, so let's punish them".
edit: more
Last edited by AreWeThereYeti on Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:10 pm
What the hell is the EU thinking? I'm onboard with Google facing antitrust actions, but opening up personal data to any third party that wants it is absolutely horrifying.
Well that is that whole level playing field. Google has access to that data and is using it. So it is either Google loses access to said data or the competition gets to use it as well.
It is funny that Vestager is in the position, of saying 'No Google, you can't allow the user opt out of user tracking by advertisers." Even though Google has provided itself with an alternative that others do not have, it is still amusing.
The problem isn't that Google isn't sharing data harvested from FloC with other advertisers. If Google didn't disclose that data to any advertiser there wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that it does share the data, for advertising purposes, with exactly one advertiser: Google.
Idea of things to split off from the parent company:
Amazon: AWS
Apple: media businesses (iTunes, Music, TV+, Podcasts, etc.)
Facebook: WhatsApp, Instagram, advertising
Google: Android, GCP
Microsoft: Azure, Xbox
My concept here is to break them up both to explicitly reduce their size and synergies across product lines and business sectors (bingo!). Google is hard because I'd really like to see advertising broken off from search, but I don't think there is a search business left without the advertising revenue supporting it.
Uh, Ushio is right. Tell us exactly how Android would work, split off from the parts of the company that actually make any money. If you don't let them require their apps as part of Android branding, and you don't let them fund it with advertising from elsewhere in the company... how is Android development supposed to be funded?.
You can't just tell a company they have to spend money to develop something and then just give it away for free.
Off the top of my head: licensing fees for Play Services and the other non-free portions of Android. Alternatively, and less appealingly, monetizing aggregated and anonymized user data just like Google does now.
Damned if you do [gather private data], damned if you don’t [share it].
What the hell is the EU thinking? I'm onboard with Google facing antitrust actions, but opening up personal data to any third party that wants it is absolutely horrifying.
Well that is that whole level playing field. Google has access to that data and is using it. So it is either Google loses access to said data or the competition gets to use it as well.
I'd rather see Google broken up than giving everyone access to it. Just look at what we get with Facebook who gives people access to the data. It's gets stolen and misused on a regular basis. Then again, I guess that would give me the final push I need to get rid of Google services for good.
The other option is the answer. If Google implements this... then they should only be able to see only what others can see. That works fine as far as I am concerned.
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