French Look at Online Ad Dominance Enjoyed by Google, Facebook
May 23 2016 - 4:47PM
Dow Jones News
By Sam Schechner
France's competition authority on Monday opened an inquiry into
possible antitrust issues in the online-advertising market, saying
it will examine the market power of Facebook Inc. and Alphabet
Inc.'s Google.
The Autorité de la Concurrence said its inquiry, which it
expects to complete next year, will examine the role of the thicket
of firms that help advertisers and websites buy and sell ads
targeted at people and based on their demographic backgrounds and
Web-browsing habits.
The probe will also look at whether some firms, including
Facebook and Google, have dominant positions in the online
advertising market, which continues to grow rapidly.
The probe highlights the growing interest by European antitrust
regulators in the role played by big Internet companies and the
large sets of personal data they collect about individuals.
Germany's competition authority earlier this year opened a probe
into whether Facebook abuses its dominance as a social network to
get users to give up personal information.
The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, is
investigating Google's advertising contracts, after filing two sets
of charges against Google for alleged abuses of dominance in other
areas.
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment, but in the past
Facebook said it is confident it complies with the law. A Google
spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In
the past Google has denied EU antitrust charges against it and said
it follows the law.
In 2015, Google and Facebook together accounted for 43% of
global net advertising revenue online, according to an estimate
from market-research firm eMarketer.
A French sector inquiry doesn't begin with the assumption that
there is a market problem that needs resolution or there is
anticompetitive behavior. The competition authority didn't allege
any such behavior when it announced its sector inquiry on
Monday.
But France's competition authority, one of the world's most
active, has at times issued recommendations and launched antitrust
probes into companies on the back of such sector inquiries.
It isn't illegal in Europe to have a dominant position, but it
is illegal if a company uses it to thwart competition.
Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 23, 2016 16:32 ET (20:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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