Those complaints crystallized in the early 2020s, when both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission launched antitrust investigations into Google’s control over the plumbing of online advertising.
When the Commission issued its final decision in September, it made the unprecedented move of stipulating that its concerns could only be resolved if Google ceded control of its market-leading ad tech tools.
The measures proposed to Brussels by Google fall far short of the envisioned structural sell-off that both the Commission and its American counterpart envisioned as a solution to Google’s distortion of competition in the online advertising sector.
They also largely echo the proposals Google submitted to the U.S. federal court overseeing the Trump administration’s ad tech case, where it, too, proposed a mix of behavioural fixes. Closing arguments in the U.S. trial will begin on Monday.
In its statement, the Commission said it would analyze Google’s remedies against a yardstick of whether they end and address the conflicts of interest that Google’s ownership of the sellside, buyside and exchange infrastructure upon which digital ads are priced and placed.
The Commission has never imposed structural remedies and faces a high legal bar for doing so, legal experts have told POLITICO.