Google’s ad business faces anti-trust test in Australia as battle against tech titans continues
The anti-trust fight against big techs seems to be heading in another direction albeit in Australia, months after Facebook faced a similar threat in the United States.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has mooted the idea of letting internet users choose what personal data companies like Google share with advertisers, as part of the country’s attempts to shatter the dominance of tech titans.
The Australian regulator has also proposed limiting the internet giants’ ability to access users’ online histories to cross-sell products.
The proposals were part of the ACCC’s interim report into digital advertising in Australia, a A$3.4 billion ($2.6 billion) market the regulator said is marked by a lack of competition, transparency and choice.
This is coming on the heels of what analysts have described as an ‘onslaught’ against global tech giants. It would be recalled that quite recently in December, 2020, MARKETING EDGE reported that the U.S Federal Trade Commission and 48 Attorneys General filed dual antitrust suits designed to undo the merger of Facebook and Instagram as well as Facebook’s takeover of WhatsApp.
The ACCC estimates Google’s share of Australian digital advertising revenue at between 50% and 100%, depending on the service.
“Google is the only one that can determine the effectiveness of ads, so really often they’re marking their own homework when it comes to the effectiveness of the ads they supply,” ACCC chair Rod Sims told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“There’s a lot wrong with the market and it’s effectively dominated by one player,” he added.
The proposals add a new element to the antitrust regulator’s campaign to check the power of online behemoths Google and Facebook Inc. in Australia.
Proposals by the ACCC that Google pay local media for content that drives traffic to their websites have been adopted in draft legislation by the government. Google has criticized the planned News Media Bargaining Code, threatening to pull its search engine from Australia if they go ahead.
In a 222-page digital advertising report, the regulator also suggested a system under which users’ personal data would be shared more widely with advertisers, on an anonymised basis, to foster more competition.
Allowing internet users to choose to give other parties access to their clicking data may also promote competition among online advertising suppliers, the ACCC said.
Preventing tech companies from using data collected in one scenario to sell advertising in an unrelated field would also reduce the ability of a single player to dominate the digital ad market, the report added.
With the latest onslaught against Google, the biggest loser would be the search engine giant’s multi billion dollar business in a period where competition and Covid-19 have done unprecedented damage to businesses.
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