Brussels asks news groups to describe their data deals with Google

Questionnaire sent to publishers is part of wider competition probe

The European Commission has sent detailed questionnaires to news publishers as it tries to understand whether the way Google collects data from their websites allows it to stifle competition in online advertising.

The questionnaire, seen by the Financial Times, asks news publishers to explain how Google tracks user activity and browsing data from their sites in order to subsequently personalise adverts.

“Describe any agreements . . . based on which Google collects data from your company or is allowed to obtain data from users of your websites or apps,” said one question, asking the publishers to describe the scope, duration and rationale for their deals with Google.

The questions also ask whether Google provides any technical support or compensation in exchange for the data.

In a sign of how the commission’s antitrust investigators are trying to shape a case against Google, the questions focus on whether the internet company is using its dominance to force publishers into sharing data, and whether that data is then repackaged and sold on by Google to third parties, giving any of its advertising clients the same information that news websites have about their readers.

The questions also examine whether data from news publishers is aggregated into Google’s overall profiles, giving the search group an ever greater advantage in how it can tailor adverts.

The questions to publishers are part of a wider look by the commission at the implications for competition of Google and Facebook’s data collection practices, announced just days after Margrethe Vestager started a second five-year mandate as competition commissioner.

So far, investigations into the use of data have largely focused on the privacy of end users. Respondents have until January 15 to send their replies.

Publishers have long complained that Google has abused its market power, both in how it presents search results for news and in the way it runs its digital advertising business.

In a recent policy paper sent to Ms Vestager, the European Publishers’ Council calling for an investigation into how Google and Facebook use “the troves of data collected across their properties through pervasive user surveillance to dominate search and (social) display advertising respectively”.

The publishers argue Google, through control of data, has an indispensable position on both the buy-side and the sell-side of the digital advertising market. “This creates a situation whereby the dynamics by which auctions are run are unclear; data from those auctions is inconsistent and patchy and where Google is positioned to act in a way that enables it to both prioritise its own inventory, and outbid its rivals,” the EPC argued in its paper.

Antitrust lawyers expect the probes will lead to new cases being opened against Google in Brussels and may influence tougher rules on how Big Tech should treat data when it comes to its agreements with rivals.

The questionnaire also focuses on how news websites themselves collect and use different types of data.

“Please explain how your company collects data from users ( . . . ) data you collect when users are setting up accounts on your websites/apps, when they are signing in for a newsletter,” reads one of the questions.

The European Commission declined to comment on the questions sent to the news groups on Friday.

But in the past, the commission has said that questionnaires on the search company’s collection and use of data constitute part of an ongoing preliminary investigation.

Google declined to comment but has noted previously that publishers around the world made more than $14bn using advertising tools provided by Google last year.