Image by Anthony Quintano, from Wikimedia Commons
Watchdogs Report Google Favoring Its Own Services And Limiting Competition.
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has accused Google of abusing its dominance in tech advertising, stating that the company favors its own services and limits competition.
The CMA’s statement of objections , released on Friday, says that Google’s actions create an uneven playing field for rivals in the ad tech sector. A final decision will be made by a separate panel after considering feedback from Google.
The investigation revealed that most publishers and advertisers rely on Google’s ad tech services to buy and sell digital advertising space. The CMA believes that Google uses its market power to prioritize its own services, making it harder for competitors to offer more competitive options to publishers and advertisers.
This has raised concerns that Google’s behavior is limiting competition and preventing businesses from getting a fair deal.
According to Bloomberg , Juliette Enser, the CMA’s interim executive director of enforcement, stated that the authority’s provisional findings point to Google abusing its market power. She explained, “Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites.”
Bloomberg reported that Google disagrees with the CMA’s findings. Dan Taylor, Google’s VP of Global Ads, said the case is based on misinterpretations of the ad tech sector. He added that the company plans to issue a formal response.
“Our advertising technology tools help websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers,” Taylor said to CNBC .
This is not the first time Google has faced scrutiny over its advertising practices. Last year, EU regulators have also raised concerns about the company’s dominance in the tech advertising market, accusing Google of favoring its own ad exchange program over competitors, giving it an unfair advantage in the industry.
The European Commission suggested that Google might need to restructure its ad tech business to address these concerns. Bloomberg points out that in July 2023, the European Commission noted that simply requiring Google to implement behavioral changes might not be enough to address its anti-competitive practices.
This raises the possibility of a more drastic measure, such as ordering Google to separate its ad tech business from its core services.
Photo by Owais Bandaly on Unsplash
Qualcomm Partners with Google and Samsung to Build Smart Glasses
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
The global tech company Qualcomm is working with Google and Samsung to build new smart glasses. Qualcomm’s CEO, Cristiano Amon, told the news channel CNBC during an interview on Thursday, that they are working on a new device that can connect to the smartphone with a mixed-reality technology.
“It’s going to be a new product, it’s going to be new experiences,” said Amon. “But what I really expect to come out of this partnership, I want everyone that has a phone to go buy companion glasses to go along with it.”
According to the CEO, the experience of wearing the new smart glasses will be very similar to wearing sunglasses or regular eyeglasses, only that it will be listening and “seeing” everything the users see and do. The company is not working on XR headsets for this project as rumored among experts and users in the industry, and as other companies like Apple are doing—with its Apple’s Vision Pro.
“I think we need to get to the point that the glasses are going to be no different than wearing regular glasses or sunglasses. And then with that, we can get scale,” said Amon.
Qualcomm has also been developing chips that can run AI and has been incorporating them into multiple devices, allowing the company to experiment with generative AI, mixed reality technology—virtual and augmented reality— and mixed ways to process information.
“AI is going to run on the device. It’s going to run on the cloud. It’s going to run some in the glass, some in the phone, but at the end of the day, there’s going to be whole new experiences,” explained Amon.
The tech company has also been developing similar products with Meta and Rayban and using AI assistants powered by Meta’s LLM Llama.
According to Reuters , Qualcomm is also interested in buying and using Intel technology—which recently announced a downsizing plan —to develop its AI chips.
