In an article looking at various national and EU-level cases where competition authorities in Europe are looking into tech companies’ use of online data, Politico concluded that the regulators are likely to face an uphill battle in arguing that the companies’ dominance harms consumer choice.

One crucial question for the regulators is, to what extent the vast collection of the user data by Google and Facebook has helped the companies become dominant players in the online advertising space.

However, Google and Facebook argue that their users are free to use any competitive service, and have control over what data is shared with advertisers. Furthermore, regulators may find it difficult to argue that the companies are trying to prevent their competitors from collecting similar data. Crucially, some question how well monopoly rules dating largely from a pre-digital era are adapted for these cases, as they force regulators to “make totally new arguments”, as one commentator said to Politico. 

The angle European authorities take on the issue should be of interest also to news publishers, who are increasingly joining forces through data exchange initiatives in order to bolster their offerings to advertisers.

We have published a report on Google’s antitrust woes around the world – please find the report here.