Google's revised ad targeting plan triggers fresh competition concerns in UK
What is going on with Google's long-touted migration to an alternative adtech stack (aka its Privacy Sandbox proposal)? What indeed.
What is going on with Google’s long-touted migration to an alternative adtech stack (aka its Privacy Sandbox proposal)? What indeed. The entire multi-year endeavour to reshape the commercial web looks dangerously close to being killed off after the latest intervention by the U.K.’s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
This comes on top of the u-turn that Google made around third-party tracking cookies. Originally they were going to be depreciated; as of July, cookies look like they are here to stay.
The CMA has been probing Google’s Privacy Sandbox plan since January 2021, following a November 2020 complaint by a coalition of digital marketing companies — which is one reason the project has been so tortuously slow. But slow is starting to look like a flat out ‘no’ from the U.K. regulator.
In a case update Tuesday, the CMA’s tossed yet another spanner in Google’s works, writing that it has “competition concerns” about its most recent revisions. Earlier commitments the tech giant had given it would also need to be updated to reflect “the evolution in Google’s planned Privacy Sandbox browser changes”, it said.
Meaning — at the very least — further delays to a project that’s already years over its original schedule.
The CMA said it’s discussing changes with Google, and Google would be required to address its competition concerns — but it has yet to specifying exactly which elements of the revised proposal are not yet meeting the mark. But one thing is clear: Google’s proposed shift to a user-choice architecture is on ice while the regulator weighs impacts.
“If the CMA is not able to agree changes to the commitments with Google which address the competition concerns, then the CMA will consider what further action may be necessary,” the regulator also wrote, again without stipulating what options might be on the table at that point (note: Google already agreed not to end support for tracking cookies without the CMA’s agreement), adding that it will “publicly consult before taking any decision on whether to accept changes to the commitments, and is aiming to do this in Q4 2024”.
Article