Sources: Google's pro-privacy plan to block online ad trackers has boosted the US' antitrust probe, as publishers argue it would create an unfair playing field
Google has taken a lot of heat for violating people's privacy. Now it could get in trouble for trying to protect it. Tweets: @carnage4life , @jason_kint , @amir , and @jessicalessin See also Mediagazer Tweets: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Pro-privacy moves like blocking trackers means harming ad revenue of small publishers & adtech companies. Same happened with GDPR but that was legislation. Seems government is arguing big tech can't unilaterally harm ad ecosystems. At least Google can't. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Good overview. Let me add some context to my quote: - I don't think DOJ/AGs move forward case without G's data collection - GOOg/FB already mine over 8mm websites, location/browsing history so I don't think data restrictions help them without even more flagrant antitrust abuse. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Amir Efrati / @amir : This is how the cookie crumbles. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... via @NickBastone Jessica Lessin / @jessicalessin : Damned if you do, damned if you don't? @NickBastone on the latest in a new front in Google antitrust https://www.theinformation.com/ ... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The US antitrust investigations into Google were already focused on how the company bundles its ad tools in potentially anticompetitive ways; this report adds a twist — a pro-privacy move is itself being treated as evidence. Weeks earlier, Google had threatened to cut off European publishers from its ad tools if they blocked its reader-data harvesting, establishing the pattern regulators now cite: Google controls both the privacy rules and the dominant ad stack.
First-order effects
- Small publishers and adtech companies lose third-party tracking revenue overnight under the tracker-blocking plan, while Google's first-party data position stays intact — the same asymmetry publishers saw when GDPR hit, as Dare Obasanjo notes.
- The probe gains a new line of argument: sources say the privacy plan has boosted investigators' case that Google can reshape the ad market unilaterally.
Second-order effects
- Rival adtech firms and publishers are pushed into lobbying for legislative or regulatory privacy rules instead of unilateral platform ones, arguing government should set the terms rather than Google.
- Google's dual role — enforcing privacy on others' trackers while operating the largest ad exchange — sharpens the bundling concerns already at the center of the DOJ's investigation, feeding directly into the pressure that later produced the breakup suit over its ad tech business.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, privacy policy becomes an antitrust variable: gatekeepers' unilateral data decisions get weighed as exercises of market power, raising the bar for any dominant platform to change tracking rules on its own.
- The ad ecosystem could split along regulatory lines, with privacy standards set by legislation like GDPR or courts rather than by whichever platform controls the most inventory.
The trend: Platform privacy moves are increasingly being litigated as antitrust questions, with regulators treating a dominant gatekeeper's unilateral data rules as an exercise of market power.