I have requested that Europe’s Competition Commissioner @vestager examine the online “behavioural” advertising market to prevent anticompetitive practices that disadvantage publishers, restrict innovation, and limit consumer choice.
brave.com/european-commi… #antitrust
brave.com/european-commi… #antitrust
Bloomberg's @Aoifewhite101 has the story here bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Here are some of the questions we ask the @EU_Competition to consider. Do online platforms leverage dominant positions in one line of business by cross-using user data accumulated in that line of business to dominate other lines of business too, rather than compete on the merits?
Have adtech firms (who control the distribution of the ad slots supplied by publishers) distorted the market? Clearly, something is afoot: 70%-55% of buyer (marketer) cash in the €12B programmatic ad market goes to distributors (adtech), rather than suppliers (publishers).
Is anti-competitive conduct in online advertising disrupting the market and thereby harming European consumers, by diverting advertising revenues from publishers, and therefore reducing choice?
The EU online advertising market is large: €36.8 billion in 2016, according to the @EuAvObservatory 2018 update. It is also important. This supports the dissemination of digital news and entertainment throughout European society, and drivers the Digital Single Market.
Yet, despite its size and importance it is an opaque market. German, French, Dutch, and UK antitrust authorities are already concerned. This needs an EU level investigation.
