The EC further pushes to rein-in Google’s ad tech monopoly

The European Commission published provisional findings on Google’s ad tech stack, ruling that its wares (primarily AdX and DoubleClick for Publishers) have been dominant for more than a decade, further recommending billions in financial penalties, with a forced divestiture also in prospect. 

The provisional ruling was published yesterday, January 15, in a 363-page document containing the details of its comprehensive review, which scoped various aspects of Google Ad Manager. This included investigations into how its ad exchange, ad network, auction mechanics, demand-side platform, pricing rules, and publisher-side ad server, and whether or not they complied with laws in the region. 

Overall, investigators concluded that Google’s vertically integrated ad tech stack created enduring structural conflicts of interest that enabled exclusionary conduct and could not be remedied by competition on the merits alone. See list below for a summary of the EC’s findings. 

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