Competition Bureau sues Google alleging anti-competitiveness on web ads
Global News
The Thursday announcement ratchets up the Competition Bureau's ongoing investigation into Google and the world of online advertising.
The Competition Bureau is suing Google over alleged anticompetitive conduct in the tech giant’s online advertising business and wants the company to sell off two of its services and pay a penalty.
The watchdog said Thursday that such action is necessary because an investigation it conducted into Google has found the company “unlawfully” tied together its ad tech tools to maintain its market dominance.
That dominance has discouraged competition from rivals, inhibited innovation, inflated advertising costs and reduced publisher revenues, the bureau said.
The Thursday announcement ratchets up its investigation into Google and the world of online advertising, which largely amounts to ads shown to people when they visit websites.
Website owners offer the ad space as a way to drive revenue, and the ads are typically bought and sold through automated auctions using sophisticated platforms.
Throughout the buy and sell process companies use a slew of tools that help manage ad inventory, facilitate purchases or act as an intermediary between buyers and sellers.
These tools are collectively known as the ad tech stack, which the bureau alleges Google has “near-total control of” because it owns four of the largest online advertising technology services used in Canada: DoubleClick for Publishers, AdX, Display & Video 360 and Google Ads.
“No other single ad tech provider has Google’s scale or reach across the ad tech stack, with over 200 billion Canadian web ad transactions flowing through Google’s ad tech tools in 2022,” the bureau said.
