EU antitrust officials are considering ordering Alphabet's Google to end anti-competitive practices in its advertising technology business, but will stop short of ordering a breakup as they had previously warned, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
European Union regulators are due to issue a decision on a hefty fine in the coming months after antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager threatened last year to break up Google's lucrative advertising technology business.
If the threat had been carried out in what would be the first time in an antitrust case, it would have been the most severe regulatory sanction yet against Google, after Vestager accused it of favouring its own advertising services.
But competition officials are unlikely to issue a winding-up order because of the complexity involved, the people said.
A breakup order could come at a later stage if Google continues its anti-competitive practices, they said, pointing to a precedent-setting case involving Microsoft two decades ago.
The European Commission's decision could evolve, they added.
The EU is unlikely to make a decision before Vestager leaves office in November, they said, but it is still theoretically possible.
The Commission and Google, which has racked up 8.25 billion euros ($9.14 billion) in EU antitrust fines over the past decade, declined to comment.
Google's advertising revenue in 2023, including revenue from search services, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Ad Manager, AdMob, and AdSense, amounted to $237.85 billion, or 77% of total revenue. It is the dominant digital advertising platform in the world.
Vestager had suggested that Google could sell its DFP sales tools and its own advertising exchange AdX due to conflicts of interest, as it also owns advertising buying tools Google Ads and DV360, which places bids on advertising exchanges.
He said the company had allegedly illegally favored its own ad exchange AdX in matching auctions, abusing its dominance since 2014.
Google is currently the subject of an antitrust lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice that alleges it attempted to monopolize the markets for publisher ad servers and advertiser ad networks, and sought to dominate the market for ad exchanges that sit in between.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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