This investigation will look at whether Google favoured its own online display advertising services over those of rivals.
It will also scrutinise Google’s use of data for the purposes of advertising on websites and apps in order to determine whether it unfairly restricts rivals’ access to such data, reserving them for its own use. The investigation will additionally consider tracking of Android users via advertising identifiers and Google’s plans to remove third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser, which publishers – including news sites – rely on to generate income.
The investigation will span a great range of Google services, including Android OS, YouTube, Chrome, Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Google Ad Manager (used to 'auction' ad space on websites and apps) and AdX (used to manage these auctions).
Last year, Google generated a staggering $147bn in revenue from online advertising, spanning YouTube, Search, Gmail and other Google...