Australia’s Watchdog Wants To Address Google Ad Dominance

A lack of competition for Google and a lack of transparency in the digital advertising supply chain needed to be addressed because they were impacting publishers, advertisers and consumers, Australia’s competition watchdog said on Thursday, January 27.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its interim report on its inquiry into the Google-dominated digital advertising services industry in Australia that is worth AU$3.4 billion (US$2.6 billion) a year.

The industry allows advertisers to buy access to consumers’ eyeballs almost instantaneously through an automated bidding process, flashing up products that supposedly align with the individual consumers’ personal interests. Such individually tailored ads can follow consumers around the internet.

Google not only powers the digital display technology, it also controls much of the advertising space.

Commission chair Rod Sims said, “there is a real lack of competition, choice and transparency in this industry” that add to advertisers’ costs and increase prices paid by consumers.

“Google’s significant presence across the whole ad tech supply chain, combined with its significant data advantage, means Google is likely to have the ability and the incentive to preference its own ad tech businesses in ways that affect competition,” Sims wrote.

“During this inquiry, we have heard concerns from parties about potential conflicts of interest from Google’s various roles in this industry. This includes Google very often acting on behalf of both publishers and advertisers for the same ad sale across the ad tech supply chain, while also selling its own ad inventory,” He added.

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