Google modifications targeted by competitors in complaint to UK regulator
Open Web marketers are asking the Competition and Markets Authority to temporarily halt Google’s rollout of so-called privacy sandbox technology next year, he said in Monday. a press release sent by email.
The group said the changes will reduce members’ ability to collect information about web users, which will help them deliver more valuable publicity. He urges the CMA to use its power to protect small media companies that risk losing up to 75% of their revenue.
Google turned the advertising world upside down with its decision earlier this year to phase out third-party cookies that help advertisers identify customers with ads for websites they’ve previously visited and monitor convincing ads to them. to buy. Google Chrome is used by the majority of Internet users and changes will be tracked by browsers based on Google’s Chromium technology, such as Microsoft Corp.’s Edge.
The CMA said it takes the issues raised in the complaint very seriously and will carefully assess them in order to decide whether or not to initiate a formal investigation.
“We will also assess whether to impose provisional measures to order the suspension of any suspected anti-competitive behavior pending the outcome of an in-depth investigation,” the regulator said in a statement.
Google declined to comment immediately. The company argued that these measures would increase user privacy.
The online advertising that fuels the massive revenues and market power of tech giants is already a priority for the UK regulator. The CMA will become a key antitrust authority for global businesses when the transition period following the UK’s departure from the EU expires at the end of the year.
The regulator said in a July report that phasing out third-party cookies could hurt publishers’ ability to make money and invest in online content. He used Google data to estimate that UK publishers “overall earned around 70% less revenue when they couldn’t use third-party cookies to sell personalized advertising, but were in competition with others who could. “
Google owns more than 90% of the UK’s 7.3 billion pound ($ 9.7 billion) search market, the CMA announced in July. The regulator called for a new digital markets task force to tackle the “far-reaching and self-reinforcing” problems of online advertising.
Marketers for an open web said the changes Google made would prevent news publishers from accessing the cookies they use to sell advertising. He also complains that advertisers and publishers will learn less about web users thanks to Google’s push to encourage users to sign in to Chrome rather than an individual website.
The complaint says data collection will shift from the open web – where it is used by a number of companies – to the “walled garden of its Chrome browser.”
French online advertisers last month asked the French antitrust authority to act on Apple Inc.’s planned move to limit the collection of data from iPhone users.
By Aoife White
