Google changes targeted by rivals in complaint to British regulator

Bloomberg

Google’s planned changes to advertising data were targeted by a group of rivals who pushed UK regulators to make the company a top antitrust priority.
Marketers for an Open Web is asking the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to temporarily halt Google’s rollout of so-called privacy sandbox technology next year, it said in an emailed statement on Monday.
The group said the changes will curb members’ ability to gather information on web users, which helps them offer more valuable advertising. It’s urging the CMA to use its power to protect smaller media companies at risk of losing as much as 75% of their revenue.
Google upended the advertising world with its decision earlier this year to phase out third-party cookies that help advertisers pinpoint customer with ads for websites they previously visited and monitor which ads convinced them to buy. Google’s Chrome is used by the majority of internet users and the changes will be followed by browsers based on Google’s Chromium technology such as Microsoft Corp’s Edge.
The CMA said it took “the matters raised in the complaint very seriously and will assess them carefully with a view to deciding whether to open a formal investigation.
“We will also assess whether to impose interim measures
to order the suspension of
any suspected anti-competitive conduct pending the outcome of a full investigation,” the regulator said in a statement.
Google declined to immediately comment.