The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been investigating Google’s role in the adtech stack over suspected abuses of dominance since May 2022. The new development is the sending of a formal statement of objections to Google setting out provisional findings that accuse the adtech giant of self-preferencing its own ad exchange at the expense of customers and rivals.
The CMA said it believes Google’s practices could be harming “thousands” of UK publishers and advertisers who rely on its adtech to bid for and sell advertising space.