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Google offers ad tech changes to avoid EU-mandated divestment

A red, green, blue and yellow chameleon climbing on top of a cursor.
Illustration by Robyn Phelps / Shutterstock / The Current

Google has proposed “immediate” changes to its ad tech products in an effort to avoid an EU-mandated divestiture. The move follows a record €2.95 billion ($3.42 billion) fine from the European Commission in September over its "abusive" ad tech practices.

In a blog post Friday, the tech giant outlined remedies such as giving publishers the option to set different floor prices for different bidders and increasing the interoperability of its ad tech tools.

The proposed fixes aim to address two key issues in the commission’s antitrust case: Google’s self-preferencing practices and its inherent conflicts of interests, exemplified by its favoring of AdX in auctions run by its ad-buying tools (Google Ads, DV360) and publisher ad server Google Ad Manager.

The commission previously found Google to have abused its market dominance to distort competition in the ad tech industry, echoing similar findings by a U.S. federal court earlier this year.

Google reiterated that it still disagreed with the commission’s decision and will appeal.

Industry observers are already pushing back on Google, pointing out that behavioral adjustments have been consistently ineffective “to rebalance this market.”

“Without structural change, Google will continue to own and control the tools and data flows that determine the terms of trade for the entire digital advertising ecosystem,” Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers Council, told Politico.

While the commission said it will now review Google’s proposal, it has previously signaled that “only the divestment by Google of part of its services would address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest.”

Google’s proposal comes at a critical time for the future of its ad tech business: Closing arguments for the Google ad tech remedies trial in the U.S. are set to begin this Friday. Like the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice has indicated that only structural remedies, such as divestment, would prevent the company from “exploiting new roads to monopoly.”