Internet Changes Completely, Google Finally Gives Up
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Google is facing pressure from the European Union regarding an anti-monopoly case. Finally, the search engine giant gave up.
However, according to inside sources, advertising publishers in Europe rejected the proposal. They considered Google’s plan to only sell AdX did not solve the problem.
For information, Google’s advertising technology business has been in the spotlight of EU regulators since last year. This follows a complaint from the European Publisher Council highlighting Google’s advertising business model.
The European Commission accused Google of making various efforts to maintain its dominance in the digital advertising industry. This is the fourth case filed by the European Commission against Google.
Previously, Google had never offered to sell its business assets when facing an anti-monopoly case, according to three lawyers involved in the case.
In addition to Europe, Google is also facing a similar case in the US and is currently being tried. US regulators are also urging Google to sell the Ad Manager product that contains AdX, as well as Google’s publisher ad server known as DFP.
Publishers rejected Google’s proposal because they wanted to divest not only the AdX marketplace. This is because Google’s dominance is said to occur at every level of ad technology supply.
“As we have said before, the case brought by the European Commission on our third-party advertising products is a misinterpretation of the ad tech sector. This industry is highly competitive and constantly evolving. We want to remain committed to this business,” a Google spokesperson said, quoted by Reuters, Sunday (29/9/2024).
The European Commission declined to comment. The European Publisher Council also did not respond to a request for confirmation.
AdX or Ad Exchange is a marketplace that allows publishers to create ad space for advertisers to buy in real time.
Last year, the European Union’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager proposed that Google divest its DFP and ADx tools to resolve the conflict of interest that occurred.
However, the European Commission is unlikely to force Google to divest, but only to ask the technology giant to stop its anti-competitive practices altogether.
They said the divestment order could come after Google failed to fix the company’s policies to monopolize the advertising industry.
In 2023, Google’s revenue from advertising, including from search engine services, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Ad Manager, AdMob, and AdSense totaled US$ 237.85 billion (Rp 3,633 trillion) or contributed to 77% of total revenue.
Google is the largest and most powerful digital advertising platform in the world.
SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA
