Google’s ad dominance targeted by a second probe from the UK’s competition watchdog

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a new investigation into the advertising business of Google. Following the announcement in March of a joint investigation with the EU over alleged collusion between Google and Facebook-owner Meta, the second open probe on the internet giant has been launched.

The collection of tools that make up the complex online ad market will be the focus of the new investigation. The CMA notes that the US company has strong positions at various levels of the ad tech stack, and is examining three key elements where the US company is the largest player. The market used by companies to advertise their ad space, the ad exchanges themselves, which automate the sale of this inventory, and the ad server which store advertisements and choose them for display are included.

The online ad business hums because of all the main parts.

The CMA wants to know if Google is using its dominance in each of the businesses to make it harder for competitors to compete. Potential shady practices include whether or not the interoperability of its ad exchange with third-party publisher ad server and/or contractually tied these services together, making it more difficult for rival ad server to compete.

Competition in this area could reduce the ad revenues of publishers, who may be forced to compromise the quality of their content to cut costs or put their content in other places. It may be raising costs for advertisers which are passed on through higher prices for advertised goods and services.

Over the past few years, Google has been hit with fines for antitrust practices in other parts of its business. The company was fined 2.5 billion dollars by the EU for favoring its shopping service over rivals in search results. The first appeal was lost, and the second appeal is currently being appealed.

If we hear back, we will update this story.