The Italian Antitrust against Big G. The Competition and Market Guarantor Authority has opened an investigation against Google alleging abuse of a dominant position. On October 27, the Authority, together with the Guardia di Finanza, carried out an inspection of Google's headquarters.
After the allegations come from the US Congress e the cause brought by the United States Department of Justice and 11 other federal states, a new attack against Google comes from Italy.
The company, controlled by Alphabet Inc, allegedly violated article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union as regards the availability and use of data for the processing of advertising campaigns by display advertising, the space that publishers and website owners make available for displaying advertising content.
Source: Antitrust
This is what it reads in the well-known Antitrust note, according to which, in the context of the online advertising market, which Google controls thanks to its dominant position, the company allegedly used “the enormous amount of data collected” in a discriminatory way through its applications, preventing competitors in the online advertising markets from being able to compete effectively”.
In details, Google allegedly implemented internal-external discrimination: on the one hand, in fact, the American giant would have refused to provide the decryption keys of the Google ID, also excluding the third-party tracking pixels. On the other hand, it would have used tracking elements that allow its advertising intermediation services to reach a targeting capacity that some equally efficient competitors cannot replicate.
The Antitrust underlines that last year Italian advertising sales reached a value of 3,3 billion euros, a figure that represents 22% of the resources of the media sector, constituting their second source of revenues. The Authority explains that:
Through cookies inserted together with banners, pop-ups or other forms of advertising messages visible while consulting a website, it is possible for advertisers, agencies and advertising intermediaries to acquire relevant data for the user's choice of consumption and thus personalize subsequent campaigns, orienting the positioning of messages on contents of interest to the single user.
Source: Antitrust.
To these data, Google adds the power of Android, Chrome, Google Maps and Waze and all the other services provided, reaching a level that no one else can reach.
“The conducts that will be investigated by the Authority appear to have a significant impact on competition in the various markets of the digital advertising supply chain with large repercussions on competitors and consumers. The lack of competition in the online advertising industry could have an impact on website makers and publishers, who could see their resources significantly reduced as a result of Google's conduct. Not only that, according to the Antitrust, the absence of competition could also put a brake on technological innovation.