EU Set to Issue Fresh Formal Antitrust Charges Against Google

By Natalia Drozdiak 

BRUSSELS -- The European Union's competition watchdog has signaled it is preparing to issue a fresh set of formal antitrust charges, possibly before August, against Alphabet Inc.'s Google over abusing its dominance in advertising, according to people familiar with the matter.

The European Commission has asked rival companies to permit disclosure to Google of confidential information they submitted that support allegations that it abuses its dominance in advertising. They would be the third set of formal EU antitrust charges against Google.

The EU gave the companies one week to submit the new versions of the documents, suggesting the EU is nearing the final stages of drafting a so-called statement of objections against the company, two people familiar with the matter said.

As in previous antitrust cases, the commission typically circles back to companies to make specific information nonconfidential because it will have to show Google the evidence it has based its charges on.

The European Commission declined to comment. Google declined to comment.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, has already slapped Google with formal antitrust charges for allegedly skewing its search results to favor its own shopping service, and more recently in April, over Google's conduct with its Android mobile operating system.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal shortly before the Android announcement, Ms. Vestager said the agency was "advancing" its investigations into whether Google is abusing its dominance with its advertising service, an area of concern first outlined under her predecessor, Joaquín Almunia.

The investigation in advertising hits at a lucrative area of business for Google, which accounted for 90% of the tech firm's $75 billion in revenue last year.

At issue is whether the company prevents or obstructs website operators from placing ads on their websites that compete with Google's advertising business.

The EU is also looking into whether Google restricts advertisers that use Google's auction-based advertising service, where they bid for the placement of ads on search result pages, from moving to other search advertising platforms.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission closed a similar investigation in 2013 after Google committed to removing restrictions imposed on advertisers trying to coordinate their online advertising campaigns across several platforms.

News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has filed formal complaints with the commission regarding Google's business practices, including an allegation the U.S. tech giant reinforces its dominance in general search by "scraping" or copying content from publishers to display the results of news articles.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 27, 2016 12:07 ET (16:07 GMT)

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