Australia Likely to Make Regulatory Changes to Curb Google’s Adtech Dominance
Australia’s competition watchdog is the latest critic of Google. It says that the company has a lot of influence over the online advertising space in the country. Hence, new regulations are necessary to ensure that it is a level playing field.
ACCC Report Highlights Google Ad’s Dominance
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a 200-page report. According to the report, Google has a powerful position in the key areas of the advertising technology supply chain.
The report also expresses inquiry examining competition concerns in the current digital advertising sector. It concludes that there is a dire need for new regulatory solutions to curb Google’s dominance in the ad-tech space. This is important for both, consumers and businesses.
The report also stresses how much control the tech giant has over first-party data. Data access requirements and data separation powers are some of the proposed measures to tackle Google’s dominance.
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What is ACCC Saying about Google Ad’s dominance?
Rod Sims, ACCC Chair said that they have determined systematic competition concerns relating to Google’s conduct and ad-tech services over the past few years. This type of conduct is unhealthy and has the potential to harm rivals. He also said that enforcement and investigation proceedings under the general competitions law are not capable of dealing with these types of concerns.
He also said that scarcity of competition has resulted in higher ad-tech fees. An unregulated and inefficient ad-tech industry paves the way for higher costs for publishers and advertisers. This will have a negative impact on the quantity and quality of content and eventually lead to consumers shelling out more money for advertised goods.
ACCC has also found that Google is using its position to preference its own services and also protect them from competitors. It also found that nearly 90% of ad impressions that were traded through the ad-tech supply chain passed via at least one Google service.
Some of the factors that are working in Google’s favor are accessibility to consumer and other data, integrations with other ad-tech services, and access to exclusive inventory.
Will we see new regulations soon? How will Google respond? Leave your comments below and tell us what you think.
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