Exclusive-EU break-up order to Google unlikely for now, sources say

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust officials are considering ordering Alphabet's Google to end anti-competitive practices in its adtech business, but will not order a breakup as they had previously warned, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

European Union regulators are due to issue a decision with a hefty fine in the coming months after antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager last year threatened to break up Google's lucrative adtech business.

If this threat had been carried through in what would be a first for an antitrust case, it would have been the harshest regulatory penalty to date against Google, after Vestager charged it with favouring its own advertising services.

But competition officials will likely not issue a breakup order because of the complexity involved, the people said.

A break-up order could come at a later stage if Google continues its anti-competitive practices, they said, pointing to a precedent setting case involving Microsoft two decades ago.

The European Commission's decision could evolve, they added.

An EU decision is unlikely to come before Vestager leaves office in November, they said, but is still theoretically possible.

The Commission and Google, which has racked up 8.25 billion euros ($9.14 billion) in EU antitrust fines in the last decade, declined to comment.

Google's 2023 advertising revenue, including from search services, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Ad Manager, AdMob and AdSense, amounted to $237.85 billion or 77% of total revenues. It is the world's dominant digital advertising platform.

Vestager had suggested that Google could sell its sell-side tools DFP and its own ad exchange AdX because of the conflicts of interest as it also owns ad buying tools Google Ads and DV360, which places bids on ad exchanges.

She said the company had allegedly illegally favoured its own ad exchange AdX in matching auctions, abusing its dominance since 2014.

Google is currently the target of an antitrust trial brought by the U.S. Department of Justice which claims that it sought to monopolise markets for publisher ad servers and advertiser ad networks, and tried to dominate the market for ad exchanges which sit in the middle.

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(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Alison Williams, Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens)