Canada's Competition Bureau has sued Alphabet Inc.'s Google alleging that the tech giant abused its dominance and engaged in anti-competitive methods. The case centres on online web advertisements.
The market competition watchdog, in a statement, said on Thursday that Google used its ad tech tools to maintain a market supremacy and used this position to prefer its own tools, often blocking competitors. As per reports, Google is estimated to dominate the market with a 90 per cent share in publisher ad servers, 70% in advertiser networks, 60% in demand-side platforms and around 50% in ad exchanges.
According to CNBC, Google's dominance discouraged competition from rivals, inhibited innovation, reduced publisher revenue and inflated advertising cost.
“Google has abused its dominant position in online advertising in Canada by engaging in conduct that locks market participants into using its own ad tech tools, excluding competitors, and distorting the competitive process," Matthew Boswell, Commissioner of Competition, said in a statement.
The Bureau filed an application before the Competition Tribunal seeking an order that Google needs to sell two of its ad tech tools and a penalty from the company to comply with Canada's competition laws.
Responding to this, Google said that the complaints totally ignore the intense competition where buyers and sellers have plenty of choices. Dan Taylor, VP of global advertising, said that Google's advertising technology helps websites and apps to their content and enable businesses to reach the masses and said that the company is looking forward to explaining its position in the court.
The case comes a week after the US Justice Department demanded Google to sell its web browser Chrome as one of the ways to stop the company from maintaining a monopoly in online search.
Google is facing similar regulatory challenges in the US and the EU. Russia has also fined Google for failing to remove content that it deems illegal as per Russian regulations.
India's competition watchdog, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), also ordered a probe into Google's restrictive policies for real-money games on its platform, after WinZO, an online gaming platform, termed it discriminatory.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Google was trying to end an antitrust investigation in the European Union by offering to see its ad exchange platform, AdX. However, EU publishers rejected the proposal as insufficient.
