Canada Sues Google To Break Up Advertising Business [Video]

Canada’s Competition Bureau filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Google, alleging anti-competitive practices in the tech giant’s online advertising business.

The Bureau is demanding that Google divest two of its key advertising technology tools—DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) and AdX—and pay a penalty to comply with the country’s Competition Act.

The lawsuit, filed with the Competition Tribunal, follows a multi-year investigation into Google’s dominance in the digital advertising market. According to the Bureau, Google holds a market share of 90 percent in publisher ad servers, 70 percent in advertiser networks, 60 percent in demand-side platforms, and 50 percent in ad exchanges in Canada.

This dominance, the Bureau claims, has discouraged competition, stifled innovation, inflated advertising costs, and reduced revenue for publishers.

The Bureau’s investigation concluded that Google has used its control of the ad tech stack—a suite of tools enabling publishers and advertisers to buy and sell digital ad inventory through automated auctions—to unlawfully maintain and entrench its market power. …