The European Commission announcement about our advertising technology
September 5, 2025 update from Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President, Global Head of Regulatory Affairs, Google: The European Commission's decision about our ad tech services is wrong and we will appeal. It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money. There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.
Dec 8, 2023 update: We have responded to the European Commission’s statement of objections about our advertising technology business. The core of this case rests on flawed interpretations of the ad tech sector. Firstly, it's common to serve advertisers and publishers because it benefits both parties, and secondly, publishers and advertisers have enormous choice, which they exercise daily.
While we continue our constructive conversations with the Commission, we are opposing the call for divestment, as we don’t believe it is proportionate nor the right solution for our partners. We’ve spent years investing in our advertising technology to help businesses grow and support access to the diverse content people enjoy online, and we remain committed to this business.
Original post from Jun 14, 2023: Today’s Statement of Objections from the European Commission sets out claims that are not new and relate to a narrow part of our advertising business. It fails to recognize how advanced advertising technology helps merchants reach customers and grow their businesses — while lowering costs and expanding choices for consumers.
We look forward to showing how we have enabled higher-quality, more effective digital ads that have helped fund broader access to content and information online for everyone.
Ad tech is fiercely competitive and constantly evolving. We compete with hundreds of companies in this space, including household names like Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta as well as specialized advertising technology companies like Criteo, The Trade Desk, and many others. Even media companies and retailers now offer competing advertising technologies.
Many of these companies provide integrated ad tech services to both advertisers and publishers in the same way we do, because these integrated models help more efficiently connect advertisers, publishers, and consumers — benefiting all three.
And competition for digital ad placement plays out every day, at every level. Customers regularly mix and match our tools with our competitors'. According to industry studies, the average large publisher will use six different platforms to sell ads on its website this year. 1
In such a crowded space, publishers, and advertisers choose to use Google because our products are effective and reliable. Our systems optimize for the most efficient results for our customers. Sometimes that places ads on our network, sometimes it doesn't. Our ad tech fees are transparent and consistent with industry rates. And our industry-leading tools help publishers and advertisers verify that they don’t face hidden fees in buying and selling ad placements.
The digital advertising market enjoys competitive pricing, lively innovation, and robust competition — helping advertisers, publishers, and consumers. We look forward to showing how our ad tech tools help make the internet open, and accessible — and how breaking them would diminish the availability of free, ad-supported content that benefits everyone.
