Europe follows the US and wants to split Google to promote competition

The European Commission follows the US and has now stated that it wants to split up Google. Specifically, it concerns the parts for auctioning advertisements that the governments want to take apart.

European Commissioner Margarethe Verstaeger says according to Bloomberg that ‘splitting up is the only way’. The EU accuses Google parent company Alphabet of favoring its own services at the expense of competitors, website owners and advertisers, among others.

This dominant position exists because Google has a major service at three places in the chain. For website owners who want to place advertisements, it has DoubleClick for Publishers. For advertisers there is Google Ads and for auctioning there is AdExchange. All these services have a strong position on the market or are even dominant. This allows Google to sideline competition.

Europe is thus following the US Department of Justice in its desire to split up Google. It already said in January that it would strive for this. It is unclear how the case will proceed. Google and Alphabet will legally challenge a possible split, with the authorities having to demonstrate that splitting is the only way to promote competition in the online advertising market. Google rejected the accusations in January and says that competition has actually increased. For example, Netflix joined forces with Microsoft last year to sell advertisements in its subscription form with ads.