Included in Holding Alphabet Google Corporation Interested in the antitrust authorities of the European Union. As Reuters reports, the EU is going to launch the official investigation into the suspiciously profitable business of the company in the field of advertising.
This means a new front in the struggle of the European Competition Authority against Google. Over the past decade, the antimonopoly service has already fined the company for eight billion dollars for blocking competitors in online stores, on Android smartphones and in the field of online advertising. The EU promises to conduct a thorough investigation in which it will focus on positions occupied by Google in relation to advertisers, publishing houses, mediators and competitors.
Last year, the corporation received a revenue of $ 147 billion – the biggest world. The main part of profits and sales are on advertising in the search and on the company owned by Gmail and YouTube. About 16 percent of revenue brought media companies using Google Technologies for Display Advertising to post advertisements on their sites or applications.
The upcoming EU investigation may eventually affect the entire Google advertising Empire. Marketing analyst Emarketer suggests that this year Google will control 27 percent of world expenses for all online advertising, including 57 percent of the search advertising and 10 – from the display.
At first glance, these figures will not seem monopolistic, but advertisers and competitors argue that since Google owns many services, the company’s influence on different aspects of the market cannot be avoided. According to them, Google uses the dependent position of buyers, sellers and intermediaries to charge them a commission and suppress honestly competing rivals.
The US Department of Justice and somewhat supporting his states last year sued Google for the abuse of the dominant position in search advertising. In a later claim, the state group led by Texas focused on the anti-competitive behavior of the company in the Internet environment. Google denies accusations, and decisions on claims have not yet been made.