Google is on a collision course with advertisers and publishers who fired off a fresh antitrust complaint with the European Union in the run up to the US tech giant’s court fight over a record US$5 billion antitrust fine.
Movement for an Open Web, an industry group, asked the European Union to rein in how Google tweaks its search engine, after the company imposed ad-tracking changes that threaten to hit advertisers’ and publishers’ revenue streams.
A previous complaint fueled a UK probe and the group’s members now want their evidence to bolster the European Commission’s wide-ranging investigation into Google’s advertising technology.
Google, a unit of Alphabet, has been embroiled in various antitrust battles in Europe for more than a decade. Its lawyers are currently challenging a record US$5 billion EU fine at a five-day court hearing in Luxembourg. The EU earlier this year stated it would investigate Google’s privacy changes and how the search giant may favor its own online display advertising technologies over rivals.
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