According to Silicon Republic, Google announced on November 14th that it submitted a compliance plan to the European Commission addressing antitrust breaches in its adtech business. This comes after the company was hit with a massive €2.95 billion fine in September for “distorting competition” by favoring its own advertising tools. The Commission had given Google 60 days to detail how it would end “self-preferencing practices” and address “inherent conflicts of interest” in its adtech supply chain. Google claims its plan “fully addresses” these concerns while arguing that breaking up its business would harm “thousands of European publishers and advertisers.” The company is proposing product changes including letting publishers set different minimum prices for different bidders and increasing tool interoperability.
What Google’s actually proposing
So what’s actually in this compliance plan? Basically, Google’s offering what amounts to a series of technical tweaks rather than structural separation. The most concrete change they’re mentioning is giving publishers more control over pricing in Google Ad Manager – specifically, letting them set different minimum prices for different bidders. That’s supposed to level the playing field between Google’s own ad-buying tools and competitors. They’re also talking about “increasing interoperability” of their tools, which sounds good but could mean almost anything in practice. Here’s the thing: these are the kinds of changes that sound reasonable on paper but might not actually change the fundamental power dynamics in the adtech ecosystem.
The breakup threat is real
Let’s be clear – the breakup threat isn’t just theoretical. Sources told Reuters that the EU could issue a break-up order if Google continues its anti-competitive practices. And this isn’t just an EU problem – Google’s facing nearly identical pressure in the US. The Department of Justice case found Google illegally monopolized parts of its publisher ad server and ad exchange, and the government there is actually arguing for forcing Google to sell AdX. Judge Leonie Brinkema has been hearing arguments on this exact issue recently. So Google’s fighting this battle on two fronts simultaneously, and what happens in one jurisdiction could easily influence the other. If the US court rules for breakup, that basically solves the EU’s problem too.
The core conflict of interest
The fundamental issue here is that Google operates at multiple levels of the digital advertising supply chain simultaneously. They provide tools for publishers to manage their ad inventory, they operate the ad exchange where ads get bought and sold, and they have their own ad-buying services competing with others. It’s like being the stadium owner, the referee, and one of the teams all at once. No wonder regulators are skeptical that minor product tweaks will fix this. When you’re dealing with complex industrial technology systems – whether it’s adtech platforms or the industrial panel PCs that IndustrialMonitorDirect.com supplies to manufacturing facilities – you need clear separation between competing interests. Google’s argument that breakup would be “too disruptive” might be true, but that doesn’t make the current situation fair.
What happens next
Now we wait for the European Commission to review Google’s proposal. They’re not obligated to accept it – if they think these changes don’t go far enough, they can demand more drastic measures. Meanwhile, Google’s still appealing the original decision, so this could drag on for years. The real question is whether these proposed changes represent meaningful competition reform or just regulatory theater designed to buy time. Given that Google’s facing similar scrutiny in multiple markets, they might be hoping that offering the same solution everywhere will create enough momentum to avoid the nuclear option of breakup. But regulators on both sides of the Atlantic seem to be losing patience with tech giants promising to play nice.
