Several European media companies have filed a complaint with the European Commission about Google they announced Friday† According to the news media, the tech company has a monopoly on online advertising and is therefore anti-competitive. Promises of improvement have so far come to nothing, the publishers said. The media companies want the European Commission to intervene and curb Google’s power in the advertising market.
The media companies, including DPG Media – van de Volkskrant, Trouw and the AD – and Mediahuis (among others NRC and The Telegraph), have united under the name European Publishers. According to this industry association, Google is disrupting the market because the company can both buy and sell online advertising space. This allows it to allow its own interests to prevail over those of other parties. The media argue that their reliance on Google for online advertising has grown.
Many traditional media companies have seen their advertising revenues plummet in recent years following the rise of tech giants such as Google and Facebook. This is partly why news media around the world want tech companies to pay for news articles with which Google and Facebook achieve a large reach. The platforms benefit from the reach and the associated advertising revenue, but do not reward journalism for this.
Governments have already intervened in several countries. In Australia, for example, a media law was passed at the beginning of last year that forces companies to pay for the distribution of news articles. A few months earlier, the French antitrust regulator fined Google 500 million euros for failing to negotiate “in good faith” fees for media organizations.