Google's biggest source of revenue—the adtech sector—accounted for 79% of the company's total revenue last year, so the stakes are higher in this latest dispute with regulators. It made $224.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2022 from search services, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube ads, Google Ad Manager, AdMob, and AdSense.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU antitrust chief, stated, "A behavioral remedy is unlikely to be effective at stopping the anti-competitive practices." As a result, Google may have to sell a portion of its adtech business. She stated at a news conference, "We would put an end to the conflicts of interest if Google divested its sell-side tools, DFP and AdX." Google stated that it disagreed with the charge made by the Commission. It is not new that the Commission is looking into a specific aspect of our advertising industry. Dan Taylor, Google's vice president of global advertising, stated in a statement, "We disagree with the EC's view."
The charge was welcomed by the European Publishers Council, which complained to the Commission last year. According to the Commission, Google favors its own online display advertising technology services over competing service providers, advertisers, and online publishers. According to the report, Google has been abusing its dominance since 2014 by favoring AdX, its own ad exchange, in the ad selection auction conducted by its dominant publisher ad server DFP, as well as by favoring AdX in the manner in which its ad buying tools, Google Ads and DV360, place bids on ad exchanges. According to Insider Intelligence, a research company, Google holds a 28% market share of global ad revenue, making it the world's leading digital advertising platform.