EU Commission launches investigations into Google’s advertising technology and data behavior
The European Commission has launched two investigations into Google’s advertising technology and Google’s handling of data. To this end, the Commission prepared a questionnaire which was sent to various advertisers.
The European Commission has indicated that the investigations will focus on all of Google’s services, including digital advertising and the ad technology chain. The questionnaire was launched “in the context of investigating how Google uses and collects data,” the Commission said in a statement to Bloomberg.
Politico was the first to report on the questionnaire, on the basis of which the website concluded that there are two studies: how Google uses and collects data and how Google behaves in the advertising market. The questionnaire would consist of thirteen pages and would have been sent to all kinds of advertisers. The document would say that the Commission has potential concerns about how Google collects, processes, uses, monetizes and accesses data.
According to Politico, questions have been raised about the impact of Google’s product changes on customers and competitors. Google Display Network is specifically mentioned in this regard. The document allegedly asked whether businesses left this network after it became a default setting for Google Ads search campaigns in 2018. The Commission would also ask whether companies see search and display ads as interchangeable. It would also look at whether Facebook and YouTube could be seen as competitors and at Google’s future plans to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome browser.
Google says it is cooperating with the Commission, Reuters writes on the basis of a statement from a spokesperson. “We compete with many others in the industry, giving people granular controls over how their information is used to personalize ads and restrict the sharing of personal data to protect their privacy,” a Google spokesperson said.
In the past five years, the Commission has imposed several heavy fines on Google for breaching competition rules, such as 2.4 billion euros for favoring its own price comparison site Google Shopping in the search results of Google’s search engine. Google was also fined €4.34 billion for Android abuse of power and a fine of €1.49 billion for abuse of power with the search advertising service AdSense.
The deadline for completing the questionnaire is Friday. The investigations appear to be non-public and it is unknown when they will be completed or whether they will ultimately lead to new investigations, concrete allegations or fines. An EU official told Politico that the amount of money invested in this case indicates that the Commission intends to launch public, formal investigations at a later date.