Google said it would make changes to its global advertising business to ensure it did not abuse its dominance, bowing to antitrust pressure for the first time in a landmark settlement with French authorities. The watchdog found that Google’s ad-management platform for large publishers – Google Ad Manager – favoured the company’s own online ad marketplace – Google AdX – where publishers sell space to advertisers in real time. Ad Manager provided AdX with strategic data such as the winning bidding prices, while AdX also enjoyed privileged access to requests made by advertisers via Google’s ad services, the authority said. AdX, in turn, exchanged data more smoothly with Ad Manager than it did with other advertising-management platforms, the watchdog added. CommitmentsUnder the terms of the settlement, Google made commitments to improve the way Ad Manager services worked with rival ad servers and ad-space sales platforms, the French watchdog said.

Source: The Irish Times June 07, 2021 12:14 UTC