The Antitrust has initiated an investigation against Google assuming an abuse of dominant position.
The company, controlled by Alphabet Inc, allegedly violated article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union regarding the availability and use of data for the processing of display advertising campaigns, the space that publishers and owners of websites make advertising content available for display.
The Competition and Market Authority denies the fact that, in the crucial online advertising market, which Google controls also thanks to its dominant position on a large part of the digital supply chain, the enormous amount of data collected is used in a "discriminatory way. through its applications, preventing competing operators in the online advertising sales markets from being able to compete effectively ".
In particular, according to the Antitrust, Google appears to have engaged in internal-external discrimination by refusing to provide the Google ID decryption keys and excluding third-party tracking pixels.
At the same time, it would have used tracers that allow it to make its advertising intermediation services capable of achieving a targeting capacity that some equally efficient competitors are unable to replicate.
It should be considered that online advertising sales in 2019 recorded a value of over 3.3 billion in Italy, which currently represents 22% of the resources of the media sector, and display advertising alone had a turnover of over 1.2 billion.
By importance, online advertising is the second largest source of revenue in the media sector in terms of value.
On October 27, the Authority conducted inspections at Google's offices, with the collaboration of the military of the Guardia di Finanza.