UK’s CMA Says Google’s Ad Tech Practices May Violate Competition Law

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Friday (Sept. 6) that it has found that Google may have harmed competition by using its dominance in online display advertising to favor its own ad technology services.

The regulator added that it will accept comments on this “statement of objections” before deciding whether the company has violated competition law, according to an update on the investigation that was posted Friday.

“We’ve provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites,” Juliette Enser, interim executive director of enforcement at the CMA, said in a Friday press release.

Google did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

In a statement provided to the Wall Street Journal, Google Vice President of Global Ads Dan Taylor said the company’s advertising technology tools help publishers fund their content and enable businesses to reach potential customers.

“Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector,” Taylor said, per the WSJ report.

The CMA opened its investigation focusing on Google’s ad tech stack in May 2022 and then combined it with a separate investigation into the company’s header bidding services in March 2023, according to the update.

The regulator’s investigation so far has provisionally found that the “vast majority” of publishers and advertisers use Google’s ad tech services to bid for and sell advertising space, that Google may be using its dominance in the sector to give preference to its own services, and that the company may disadvantage competitors, per the update.

Enser said in the press release that many businesses are able to offer free or lower-priced content by generating revenue with advertising and that these advertisements assist the buying and selling of goods and services by reaching millions of people in the U.K.

“That’s why it’s so important that publishers and advertisers — who enable this free content — can benefit from effective competition and get a fair deal when buying or selling digital advertising space,” Enser said in the release.

The CMA plans to accept comment on its statement of objections from December through March 2025 and to consider these comments from April 2025 through December 2025, according to the update.

Google’s ad tech business also faces a challenge in the United States, where the Department of Justice (DOJ) and a coalition of states are pursuing an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the company keeps competitors out of advertising technology markets and harms news publishers. This trial is set to begin Monday (Sept. 9) in Alexandria, Virginia.