Data being the lubricant of any interest-based advertising, control over access to data has become a central competitive factor in the advertising business; and a focal point of several antitrust investigations. The dependence of data on the part of a publisher, an advertiser or an ad tech intermediary depends significantly on the advertising format in question. This article outlines the relevance of data for competition on the various sub-markets of online advertising and their respective significance for a striving digital ecosystem. It concludes that because the most sustainable positive effects emanate overall from behavior-based advertising, competition authorities must pay particular attention to any measures by dominant companies to artificially restrict access to data required for behavioral advertising.
By Thomas Hoppner & Philipp Westerhoff [1]
I. DEBATES AROUND DATA FOR ONLINE ADVERTISING
The European Commission[2] and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”)[3] are currently investigating whether Google’s removal of third-party cookies anti-competitively deprives publishers and advertisers of access to data that is required for effective advertising. Similarly, the competition authorities in France,[4] Germany,[5] Poland,[6] and Italy[7] have opened probes whether Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Framework (“ATTF”) restricts competition by making it more difficult for third parties to collect advertising-relevant data within App
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