January 2023 - OPEN INTERNET PROJECT

31 January 2023
ACTUALITÉS

"Google's digital advertising practices represent a systematic plundering of traditional media"

The European association Open Internet Project (OIP) recognises in the proceedings initiated by the US Department of Justice against Google Alphabet, the questioning of systemic practices that the ADLC already had the opportunity to condemn in the amount to 220 million euros in 2021.

According to the American press, the antitrust proceedings initiated by the Department of Justice could result in a recommendation to dismantle Google and its head company Alphabet. The Open Internet Project has long been convinced that the concentration in Google’s hands of the dominant activities of publishing service platforms (such as e-mail or video), advertising services, publishing the web browser, search engine, mobile operating system or distributing mobile applications can only lead Google to abuse this confusion, to the detriment of free and undistorted competition.

This is illustrated by the large number of condemnations of Google. The OIP therefore believes that a dismantling of the Alphabet group and a splitting of Google’s activities into several legally, economically and technologically independent entities would be an effective and necessary solution, provided that such a dismantling is accompanied by the implementation of “algorithmic remedies”, i.e. remedies prohibiting the new entities resulting from the dismantling from using algorithms allowing them to combine their data on a large scale.

Besides Google’s competitors in digital advertising, the victims of these practices are the traditional media, which see the fair revenues to which they are entitled in the digital advertising market slip away in the opacity of billions of second transactions.

While the media and “pure players” represent 25% of the audience share on the Internet, they hardly represent 10 to 15% of the digital advertising market share, which means a loss of 800 million to 1 billion euros per year for the media that sustain culture and democracy in France.

« Getting back these phenomenal resources to ensure the financing of the media that keep the news alive is a decisive issue for the upcoming Estates General on the right to information called for by the President of the Republic and announced by the Minister of Culture. It is time to put an end to the systematic plundering of the digital advertising market by Google for its own benefit »

says Léonidas Kalogeropoulos

Delegate general

Contacts:

Léonidas Kalogeropoulos, Délégué Général : +33607315126 – l.k@openinternetproject.eu

Anaïs Strauss, Chargée de mission :+33757503010 – anais.strauss@openinternetproject.eu

26, rue de l’Université • 75007 Paris
+33 (0)1 53 45 91 91

11 January 2023
NEWS

OIP welcomes the Statement of objections issued by the Bundeskartellamt against Google’s preferential treatment of its data processing terms

L’OIP se félicite de l’annonce par le Bundeskartellamt, l’autorité de la concurrence allemande, de la mise en œuvre d’une procédure formelle à l’encontre de Google et de sa maison-mère Alphabet.

Agreeing with the analyses of our association and data protection authorities across the European Union, the Bundeskartellamt believes that the American group must change the way it collects and cross-references the personal data of Internet users through its various services, allowing it to gain an unfair competitive advantage over its competitors.

According to the Bundeskartellamt’s analysis, Google currently allows itself to combine data from its various services, for example, for the purpose of very detailed advertising user profiles or to train functions provided by services, including through the Google Play services integrated into many apps for Android devices.

However, the preliminary conclusions of the German competition authority show that Google does not offer European users sufficient choice to make an informed objection to this processing of their data across services. Google is using this consent defect to obtain data that its competitors cannot obtain, and thus ensure that their products are not competitive.

"In Europe, compliance with the protective rules of the GDPR is essential not only for the right to data protection of European citizens, but also to ensure a fair level of competition between all players. Players like Google must be prohibited from coming to Europe without accepting the rules scrupulously respected by European players, and Google must be prevented from benefiting from the continued and repeated violation of European law,"

says Leonidas Kalogeropoulos

Delegate general

The OIP is pleased that the Bundeskartellamt intends to use its enforcement powers under Section 19a of the German Competition Act to prohibit Google from continuing practices that are illegal under German and European law. At the European Union level, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) should also allow the Commission to prohibit such practices as soon as they are detected.

"OIP calls for the DMA to be implemented as quickly and effectively as possible. We must fight to ensure that illegal and abusive practices that impede competition and undermine consumer rights stop as soon as they occur, and this requires both protective measures and uncompromising enforcement of the DMA's dispositions,"

declares Quentin Adam

President

Contacts:

Léonidas Kalogeropoulos, Délégué Général : +33607315126 – l.k@openinternetproject.eu

Anaïs Strauss, Chargée de mission :+33757503010 – anais.strauss@openinternetproject.eu

26, rue de l’Université • 75007 Paris
+33 (0)1 53 45 91 91