Canada’s competition authority has accused Google of abusing its online advertising tools to establish a monopoly and has filed a complaint seeking to compel the company to divest two of its primary advertising technology services.
This case is central to Google’s business operations and parallels an ongoing antitrust lawsuit in the United States against the tech giant.
Both legal actions occur alongside four other lawsuits filed in the U.S. against Google since 2020, as well as global efforts to regulate the influence of major technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple over online information and commerce.
Additionally, Canada is implementing new laws aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of social media and requiring technology firms to compensate traditional news organizations.
In a statement, Canada’s Bureau of Competition Policy, a law enforcement agency, alleged that Google has leveraged its status as the leading provider of advertising software, its auction marketplace, and its ad display services to unlawfully dominate the advertising sector.
The bureau claimed that Google’s actions ensure the company “maintains and entrenches its market power,” effectively locking market participants into its ad tech tools and hindering competition.
Alongside its request for the Competition Tribunal of Canada to mandate the sale of two of Google’s ad technology services, the bureau is seeking to impose a fine of up to 3 percent of Google’s global revenues, which exceeded $305 billion last year. Google’s ad tech services reportedly generated around $31 billion in revenue globally last year.
The bureau also aims to prevent Google from engaging in anticompetitive practices.
The U.S. Justice Department and eight states have made similar requests in their ongoing lawsuit against Google, with closing arguments concluded recently and a judge set to determine the case's merits in the coming months.
In response to the Canadian bureau’s allegations, Google has rejected the charges, asserting that the case overlooks the competitive landscape where ad buyers and sellers have ample choices. Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, expressed anticipation for presenting their case in court.
According to the bureau, Google controls four of the largest online advertising technology services in Canada, commanding between 40 percent and 90 percent of the market, and facilitating approximately 200 billion online ad sales annually in the country. Many of these services were developed through acquisitions of other companies.
The bureau stated, “Google’s near-total control of the ad tech stack is by design,” indicating that the company has unlawfully interconnected its various ad tech products through a series of related actions.
As an illustration, the bureau noted that advertisers wishing to bid on ad spaces in Google’s auction system must also purchase those ads through Google’s automated auction. Furthermore, it claimed that Google dictates the terms under which publishers can utilize ad tech tools from other companies when listing advertising opportunities on its auction platform.
Additionally, the bureau accused Google of sometimes deliberately incurring losses on ad services to undermine its competitors.