The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to assess whether the U.S. search engine favors its own online display advertising services in violation of antitrust rules.
"We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack," the European Commission said in a statement.
As part of the probe, the commission will be assessing the restrictions that Google has placed on the ability of advertisers, publishers and other third parties to access online data about user identity and user behavior.
The antitrust probe marks the official start of a full assessment into how Google behaves in the advertising space with no set deadline for its completion. It also adds to a list of probes and fines that have taken place in the European market in recent years.
Earlier this month, the French competition authority fined Google 220 million Euros ($262 million U.S.) for abusing its market power in the online advertising industry.
The European Commission also imposed a fine on Google in March 2019 for breaching antitrust rules. At the time, the Brussels-based institution said the U.S. firm had imposed restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites that prevented Google’s rivals from placing their search advertisements on these websites.
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