Over 70 press freedom groups and NGOs, businesses, experts, and think tanks have urged the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera to reject Google’s offered remedies in the adtech antitrust case. In the letter initiated by the Open Markets Institute, the Future of Tech Institute and Rebalance Now, the signatories are calling for divestments to curb Google’s anti-competitive practices. Behavioural commitments have consistently failed to do so. In the adtech case structural measures are necessary to safeguard Europe’s democracy, defend its sovereignty, and protect citizens and publishers from Google’s abuse of dominance.
Here you find the letter with all signatories (pdf)
The full text of the letter:
Dear President von der Leyen,
Dear Executive Vice-President Ribera,
We, a diverse coalition of organisations and independent experts, urge you to reject Google’s transparent bid to retain its monopoly grip on Europe’s €120bn adtech market.
The consequences of Google’s monopoly for European journalism have been severe. Since 2008, when Google consolidated its power by acquiring adtech firm DoubleClick, Europe has lost 30% of its media jobs. A healthy media sector is a cornerstone of our democracies, and as it shrinks, fake news and toxic content rise to fill the gap.
As Commissioner Ribera rightly stated in her recent statement announcing Google’s breach of EU competition law, “the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its adtech business”. This mirrors the stance taken by the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) in their sister case, which closed last month. As the DOJ’s own legal counsel stated, the case calls for structural remedies that will “terminate Google’s monopolies and deny it the fruits of its unlawful conduct”.
Yet Google’s offer contains no divestments, only behavioural tweaks. These tweaks may give news outlets marginal increases in transparency and flexibility, but they do nothing to address the fundamental conflict of interest created by Google’s control of every layer of the adtech stack.
Behavioural remedies have repeatedly failed to have any meaningful impact on Google’s market dominance in Europe. Over more than a decade of EU antitrust enforcement – from Shopping to Android to AdSense – behavioural commitments have consistently failed to curb Google’s anti-competitive practices. Rectifying this now falls on the Digital Markets Act, which Google is also resisting and whose precious enforcement resources could otherwise be devoted elsewhere.
By rejecting behavioural remedies and holding to a structural solution, the Commission would be aligning with both the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. trial, the DOJ described Google as a “recidivist monopolist” always willing to violate its legal commitments. As the DOJ put it, Google “will test every technicality, every punctuation mark” to evade behavioural remedies—they have never worked against the firm, and will not work now.
The health of European journalism and democracy are at stake. We urge you not to wait for the U.S. court’s ruling. Only divestment of Google’s adtech monopoly will safeguard Europe’s democracy, defend its sovereignty, and protect citizens and publishers from Google’s predations.
