Gooogle offers to let ad rivals place YouTube ads

Google faced sanctions from the European Union and the United Kingdom earlier this year due to its antitrust practices.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has agreed to allow ad rivals to place adverts on its video streaming platform, YouTube. This latest development comes after the company faced sanctions from the EU and the UK earlier this year.

The European Commission launched an investigation to determine whether the world’s leading search and video engine company was giving itself an unfair advantage in digital advertising by restricting other rivals and advertisers’ access to user data. 

The European Union competition watchdog said Google’s requirement that advertisers use its Ad Manager to display ads on YouTube is restricting those companies from showing their ads on Google and YouTube. 

The watchdog was also investigating Google’s requirement that advertisers use its services Display & Video 360 and Google Ads to buy YouTube ads. The video streaming platform recorded a $6.9 billion revenue in the first quarter of 2022. 

In addition to the EU, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), UK’s competition regulator, announced last month that it had opened a fresh investigation into Google.

The investigation focuses on the search engine giant’s role in the advertising technology market. Furthermore, it was the second major antitrust probe into Google over the last 12 months. 

The investigation by the EU and the UK looked at Google and Facebook parent company Meta’s activities to make it tougher for competitors to enter the advertising technology market. 

Google has been discussing ways to salvage the situation with the European Commission since last year in a bid to evade a fine that could be as high as 10% of its global turnover.

Despite this latest development, sources close to the matter told Reuters that Google would need to offer more than just the YouTube remedy to get its desired deal with the European Commission. 

In 2021, Google generated over $147 billion in revenue from online ads, the highest by any company in the world.