According to an investigation by the Federal Cartel Office, Google also has a strong market position in online advertising outside of its core business with its search engine. This must be examined under antitrust law. This emerges from a “discussion report” by the authority, which was published in Bonn on Monday.
In May 2021, the Bundeskartellamt had already launched an investigation into Google and its parent company Alphabet on their core business. Behind advertising outside of search engines is a “highly complex system of automated trading in online advertising space that is quite non-transparent for many,” said Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Cartel Office. With the ongoing investigation, his authority wants to “bring more light into this black box”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/.” Google also has a strong position in this technical sub-area of online advertising at almost all stages of the value chain Market position. Not least because of this, numerous competition questions arise.”
The online weaving technology enables a highly complex and highly automated trade in advertising space, the automated display of ads and the measurement of advertising statistics. The investigation has shown that with this so-called programmatic advertising, individual market participants – and here in particular Google – have a considerable influence on the overall system. “Google is represented at almost all stages of the value chain and in practically all relevant services and in most cases has a very strong market position.”
Extended abuse control tools
In this context, Mundt referred to instruments of extended abuse control, which the German legislature introduced at the beginning of 2021. The new rules of paragraph 19a GWB allowed the Federal Cartel Office to intervene more effectively. The Bundeskartellamt enables market participants and interested parties to comment on the discussion report that has now been published by October 28, 2022.
A Google spokesman said advertising tools from Google and many other competitors are helping website and app providers fund their content. “They help companies of all sizes reach their customers effectively.” The Bundeskartellamt’s investigation covers only a fraction of the broad and extremely competitive ad tech market, in which Google competes with many established players and in which advertisers can acquire ad space on multiple marketplaces and hundreds of platforms. “We will examine the report closely and continue to work with the Federal Cartel Office and answer their questions,” he said.