‘Rife with Conflicts of Interest:’ Google Faces European Antitrust Complaint over Digital Advertising

Tech giant Google is facing another antitrust complaint filed in the EU related to the company’s digital advertising business. The European Publishers Council compares Google’s stranglehold on the digital advertising business and its built-in conflicts of interest as both ads buyer and seller to “Goldman or Citibank owning the New York Stock Exchange.”

The Daily Mail reports that the European Publishers Council (EPC) has filed an antitrust complaint against Google in the EU accusing the company of engaging in “unlawful tactics” to monopolize online advertising.

The EPC, a group of chairmen and CEOs of Europe’s largest media groups, has revealed plans to file a complaint with the European Commission about Google’s digital advertising practices. The group alleges that Google’s advertising platform is “rife with conflicts of interests” as the company is acting as both buyer and seller in the same transaction while operating the actual auction platform.

The EPC alleges that this constitutes a monopoly that is harming publishers and consumers in Europe. The EPC compared Google’s advertising platform to “Goldman or Citibank owning the New York Stock Exchange.”

The group claims that figures show that one of Google’s advertising auction programs reduced publisher revenue by 40 percent and that are worries that further changes to cookie technology could result in revenues being reduced by as much as 70 percent.

The EPC’s complaint is just the latest in a long line of antitrust lawsuits filed against Google. The French competition authority fined Googled €220 million in June for favoring its own services. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority also launched an investigation into Google over the introduction of its new Privacy Sandbox advertising plan.

The CMA recently announced that Google agreed to a set of commitments that will give the CMA oversight of the introduction of the Privacy Sandbox.

Read more at the Daily Mail here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com