As Big Tech battles EU regulators, it also flaunts its value

In Germany, authorities have asked if Apple’s ATT treats third-party data differently from its own, granting itself advantages in the ad market while enforcing stricter restrictions on competitors. Meanwhile, the pan-European investigation will reportedly probe if it favors its vertical search engines, such as Google Shopping, Google Flights, and Google Hotels, over rivals.

In both cases, regulators argue that this differential treatment negatively impacts competition, potentially violating antitrust principles. These are just the latest in a long list of — see below for a summary of the key proceedings in the region — with authorities in the region also investigating other adland giants such as Amazon and Meta via parallel investigations in the region.

1. Alphabet (Google)

• Digital Markets Act investigation 

The European Commission is investigating Google for potential breaches of the DMA, focusing on whether Google unfairly prioritizes its own services, such as Google Shopping, over competitors. 

• U.K. Competition and Markets Authority investigation: The CMA has launched an inquiry into Google’s dominance in online search and its impact on consumers and businesses, including its ad tech practices.

2. Amazon

• Preferential treatment investigation: The European Commission is examining whether Amazon’s use of non-public data from independent sellers on its platform gives it an unfair advantage in its retail operations. 

3. Apple

• App Store policies investigation: The EU is investigating Apple’s App Store practices, particularly concerning the mandatory use of Apple’s in-app payment system and restrictions on developers’ ability to inform users about alternative purchasing options.

4. Meta (Facebook)

• Marketplace practices investigation: The European Commission fined Meta nearly €800 million ($837 million) in November 2024 for anti-competitive practices related to its Marketplace service, alleging that Meta tied its online classified ads service to its dominant social network, disadvantaging competitors.

These investigations and cases are part of the EU’s broader efforts to enforce the DMA and ensure fair competition in the digital advertising sector.

Some wonder if the current tensions between governments’ insistence on citizens’ privacy while pushing open market conditions to competition/technological innovation and the growing domination of Big Tech will result in a “splinterweb.”

In the “splinterweb” scenario, The European experience of the web — primarily, the ability for ad tech companies (including  Big Tech entities) to monetize — is impeded. IAB Europe’s top economist, Daniel Knapp, notes how the term “splinterweb” first arose in “social theory critiques of the capitalist internet” and how it is increasingly becoming realized as Big Tech players — the few companies with the required scale to navigate nuanced global laws — start to dominate.

“All of this is moving into a world of controlling more and more closed pipes,” he said, speaking with Digiday in December 2024, describing the splinterweb as less interoperable but more profitable. “That’s one of the major trends we’re seeing at the moment.” 

In what many have interpreted as a bid to win over some of Europe’s most influential policymakers, IAB Europe hosted a one-day conference earlier this month at the heart of pan-European political power, dubbed Advertising Horizons, in Brussels, Belgium. 

Here, speakers from the leading advertising companies — notable among them were representatives of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and TikTok — demonstrate the economic contribution of digital advertising, particularly the value it can provide to representatives’ own constituency.

One source, who requested anonymity in return for candor, noted the perceptions IAB Europe members are trying to counter, adding that many in the industry are even setting aside their day-to-day commercial rivalries. “There’s a lot of different stakeholders, with publishers, platforms, and tech providers,” they said, adding that many were trying to work out the common denominator.

The source went on to add, “One of the things is that Brussels sees digital advertising like the tobacco industry … so traditional policy interventions don’t tend to work there.”

In an earlier December 2024 presentation entitled “State of the Nation,” which examined the dynamics of the European digital advertising market, IAB Europe’s Knapp noted how growth in the region is expected to be “stable, yet underwhelming.”

However, he also noted a “pessimistic outlook” when it comes to growth rates in Europe’s largest advertising markets, with digital ad spend across Europe expected to grow 6.1% in 2025; this is compared to 10% a year earlier.

In fact, further observation notes how increases in CTV and retail media budgets are shoring up an overall plateau in digital ad spend, with the “media apocalypse” unevenly distributed between legacy publishers and the “indieverse” (many of whom rely on the internet’s largest platforms).

Knapp further noted that 79.1% of digital ad spend in the region takes place in markets where GDP growth is forecast to be less than 2% this year. Even in the ad tech subsector, where the internet’s largest platforms faced the most competition throughout the 2010s, spending is concentrating even further.

Knapp further cited figures from Jounce Media, observing that 80% of open web demand goes through five companies: Google, Meta, Amazon, The Trade Desk, and Criteo. He noted that this is a sign that market players “require fewer, deeper partnerships.”

An examination of the forecasted spending patterns for two of the ad agency holding groups, GroupM and Dentsu, demonstrates how AI will play a role in this narrative. The former claims 94% of ad revenue will be informed by AI by 2027, while the latter claims 70% will be “algorithmically enabled” during the same period.

However, as AI is becoming intrinsically linked with media buyers’ strategies, it does raise the question of which entities control said decisioning engines. This is especially pertinent as “closed-loop systems,” such as Meta’s Advantage+, Google’s PMax, and TikTok’s Smart+, etc., dictate spending patterns by informing media teams where to attribute value.