Canada Sues Google For Alleged Anti-Competitive Conduct In Advertising

Alphabet’s Google is facing more legal trouble, this time north of the border as the Canadian antitrust watchdog alleges anti-competitive conduct in online advertising.

The Competition Bureau announced that “following a thorough investigation, the Bureau has filed an application with the Competition Tribunal that seeks to remedy the conduct for the benefit of Canadians.”

Google is not just facing trouble in Canada over its advertising practices. The company’s ad tech business is already the subject of a second antitrust case in the United States, and earlier this week the US Department of Justice delivered its closing arguments in that lawsuit.

US, UK, European investigations

The US Department of Justice, along with multiple states, had launched their probe into Google’s digital advertising practices in January 2023.

And on this side of the pond, Google is facing trouble in both the United Kingdom and European Union over its ad tech business.

In September 2024 the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally found that Google abused its market dominance in advertising technology to favour its own ad tech services in open display advertising.

The findings relate to how Google allegedly self-preferences its own ad exchange, harming competition and, as a result, advertisers and publishers, the CMA said at the time.

The European Commission meanwhile said in June 2023 a “behavioural remedy is likely to be ineffective to prevent the risk” of further abuse in the ad tech sector and that Google may be forced to break up its advertising business from its core services.

Canadian lawsuit

Now Canada’s Competition Bureau is taking legal action against Google for anti-competitive conduct in online advertising technology services in Canada.

The Bureau’s investigation allegedly found that, in Canada, “Google is the largest provider across the ad tech stack for web advertising and has abused its dominant position through conduct intended to ensure that it would maintain and entrench its market power. Google’s conduct locks market participants into using its own ad tech tools, prevents rivals from being able to compete on the merits of their offering, and otherwise distorts the competitive process.”

In particular, the Bureau found that Google allegedly has:

• unlawfully tied its various ad tech tools together to maintain its market dominance; and
• leveraged its position across these ad tech tools to distort auction dynamics by:
  • giving its own tools preferential access to ad inventory,
  • taking negative margins in certain circumstances to disadvantage rivals, and
  • dictating the terms on which its own publisher customers could transact with rival ad tech tools.

The Bureau’s position is that by implementing this anticompetitive conduct, Google has been able to entrench its dominance, prevent rivals from competing, inhibit innovation, inflate advertising costs and reduce publishers’ revenues.

The Bureau’s application with the Competition Tribunal seeks an order that, among other things:

• requires Google to sell two of its ad tech tools;
• directs Google to pay a penalty to promote compliance with the Competition Act; and
• prohibits Google from continuing to engage in anticompetitive practices.

The final decision in this matter rests with the Competition Tribunal.

“The Competition Bureau conducted an extensive investigation that found that Google has abused its dominant position in online advertising in Canada by engaging in conduct that locks market participants into using its own ad tech tools, excluding competitors, and distorting the competitive process,” said Matthew Boswell, Commissioner of Competition.

“Google’s conduct has prevented rivals from being able to compete on the merits of what they have to offer, to the detriment of Canadian advertisers, publishers and consumers. We are taking our case to the Tribunal to stop this conduct and its harmful effects in Canada.”