Australia: Release of final report by ACCC

On 28 September 2021, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) released its final report as part of the digital advertising inquiry. The main findings include Google's enormous market shares in each of the 4 advertising service markets (advertiser ad servers, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms and publisher ad servers) and Google's vertical integration in the ad tech supply chain having a negative effect on competition in the aforementioned markets. The ACCC released six recommendations as part of the final report, which includes a requirement for Google to be more transparent in the digital services market. Furthermore, the ACCC requests to be given more power in order to enforce rules that limit the market power of companies in the digital services market. The ACCC further found possible violations of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 by Google in the form of self-preferencing and several conflicts of interest. These allegations were formed after Google acted simultaneously as the advertiser and publisher on occasions. These violations of the Australian competition law by Google will now be investigated. A proposal for new rules will be released as part of the mid-term report of the five-year Digital Platform Services Inquiry (2020-2025) in September 2022.