EU Set to Issue Fresh Formal Antitrust Charges Against Google
June 27 2016 - 12:22PM
Dow Jones News
By Natalia Drozdiak
BRUSSELS -- The European Union's competition watchdog has
signaled it is preparing to issue a fresh set of formal antitrust
charges, possibly before August, against Alphabet Inc.'s Google
over abusing its dominance in advertising, according to people
familiar with the matter.
The European Commission has asked rival companies to permit
disclosure to Google of confidential information they submitted
that support allegations that it abuses its dominance in
advertising. They would be the third set of formal EU antitrust
charges against Google.
The EU gave the companies one week to submit the new versions of
the documents, suggesting the EU is nearing the final stages of
drafting a so-called statement of objections against the company,
two people familiar with the matter said.
As in previous antitrust cases, the commission typically circles
back to companies to make specific information nonconfidential
because it will have to show Google the evidence it has based its
charges on.
The European Commission declined to comment. Google declined to
comment.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, has already
slapped Google with formal antitrust charges for allegedly skewing
its search results to favor its own shopping service, and more
recently in April, over Google's conduct with its Android mobile
operating system.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal shortly before the
Android announcement, Ms. Vestager said the agency was "advancing"
its investigations into whether Google is abusing its dominance
with its advertising service, an area of concern first outlined
under her predecessor, JoaquĆn Almunia.
The investigation in advertising hits at a lucrative area of
business for Google, which accounted for 90% of the tech firm's $75
billion in revenue last year.
At issue is whether the company prevents or obstructs website
operators from placing ads on their websites that compete with
Google's advertising business.
The EU is also looking into whether Google restricts advertisers
that use Google's auction-based advertising service, where they bid
for the placement of ads on search result pages, from moving to
other search advertising platforms.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission closed a similar investigation
in 2013 after Google committed to removing restrictions imposed on
advertisers trying to coordinate their online advertising campaigns
across several platforms.
News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has filed
formal complaints with the commission regarding Google's business
practices, including an allegation the U.S. tech giant reinforces
its dominance in general search by "scraping" or copying content
from publishers to display the results of news articles.
Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 27, 2016 12:07 ET (16:07 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024