[By Vashmath Potluri & Shubhranshu]
The authors are students of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
Introduction
In August 2025, the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) launched a consolidated investigation into Google’s conduct in the online display advertising market, acting on complaints by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (“ADIF”). At issue is Google’s vertical integration across the advertising technology (“Adtech”) stack: it operates the Google Ad Manager (“GAM”), the leading ad exchange (“AdX”), and Display & Video 360 (“DV360”). By simultaneously controlling the infrastructure that runs auctions while also bidding in them, Google occupies a conflicted position that facilitates preferential treatment of its own services. The stakes here are considerable because India’s digital advertising sector has crossed the 1 lakh crore mark with digital media accounting for approximately 46 percent of total ad spend. Within this landscape, Google’s Indian advertising operations reported gross revenues exceeding 31,000 crore in FY 2023–24. Rather than leveraging overt price controls or contractual restrictions, Google’s structural foreclosure stems from engineered defaults, informational gaps and meticulously designed auction mechanics that skew outcomes in its favor.
This paper proceeds in two parts. First, it argues that informational asymmetry across the three stages of auction constitutes abuse of dominance under Sections 4(2)(c) & (e) of the Competition Act, 2002 (“Act”). Second, it proposes a three pronged regulatory framework drawing inspiration from European Union Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (“ACCC”).
Allegations Framed as Auction-Stage Foreclosure
The complaints before the CCI do not view Google’s conduct as isolated episodes of misconduct but as part of a continuous foreclosure strategy spanning the entire digital advertising stack. This stack is organised around three flagship Google services that occupy each critical layer of the chain. At the publisher end, GAM functions as the ad server through which publishers manage and sell their inventory. AdX operates as the marketplace where that inventory is auctioned in real time to potential buyers. On the advertiser side, DV360 serves as Google’s demand-side platform (“DSP”), enabling advertisers and agencies to place bids across exchanges. Functionally, therefore, GAM connects publishers, DV360 connects advertisers, and AdX sits in between as the auction mechanism.
According to ADIF, Google’s integration across these layers allows it to structure auctions in ways that systematically privilege its own services. The tying of GAM to AdX steers publishers using Google’s ad server toward Google’s exchange as the default channel for monetisation. On the demand side, YouTube inventory is made available exclusively through DV360, thereby excluding rival DSPs from premium video placements and further entrenching advertiser reliance on Google’s ecosystem. Auction design features such as “dynamic allocation” and “last look” strengthen this advantage by giving Google’s buying tools preferential opportunities to outbid rivals. To complete the cycle, Google grants its own services access to more detailed reporting data than it makes available to competing intermediaries, thereby reinforcing an informational edge. The following sections set out how these practices operate across the life cycle of an ad auction.
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Pre-Auction Foreclosure: Tying and Inventory Lock-In
DoubleClick for Publishers (“DFP”), now merged into GAM, was Google’s publisher ad server. A publisher ad server helps website and app owners decide which ads appear on their platforms. It receives requests for ad space, selects which advertisers or exchanges can bid, and directs the impressions into an auction. For publishers using DFP/GAM, routing ad requests through AdX became the default, limiting competing exchanges from accessing the full set of impressions. This meant that foreclosure began even before any bids were placed, restricting rivals at the very first stage where bid requests were formed and giving Google an advantage throughout the adtech ecosystem.
A similar foreclosure effect occurs with YouTube, India’s largest video advertising platform. Advertisers can only access YouTube inventory through DV360 platform. By requiring the use of DV360, Google effectively prevents rival DSP’s from competing for this critical ad inventory. As a result, both publishers and advertisers are channeled into Google’s ecosystem even before the auction begins, reducing participation opportunities for independent intermediaries and consolidating Google’s control over the digital advertising market.
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Auction-Stage Foreclosure: Manipulated Auction Mechanics
Once bids are received, foreclosure shifts from access restrictions to the mechanics of the auction itself. Because of its structural integration, Google is able to set the rules governing how bids are processed allowing its exchange to operate under terms unavailable to rivals. ADIF highlights practices such as “dynamic allocation” and “last look” as evidence of this imbalance. Under dynamic allocation, AdX is allegedly permitted to adjust its bid in real time against the highest competing offer, ensuring victory without overpayment. The last look feature further strengthens this advantage granting AdX the option to see the highest rival bid before deciding whether to match or exceed it.
On the other hand, rivals operate in informational asymmetry compelled to bid without visibility into the competition. The imbalance is reinforced by Google’s refusal to fully support “header bidding”, a publisher-led innovation designed to enable fairer simultaneous auctions across multiple exchanges. Instead, competing exchanges are relegated to sequential or delayed pathways that are inherently less competitive due to latency and technical disadvantages. At this stage, Google is not merely another participant in the auction but also the referee, able to tilt the rules in ways no independent platform can mirror.
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Post-Auction Foreclosure: Asymmetry of Disclosure
The foreclosure does not end with the conclusion of the auction but extends to the reporting and feedback stage where transparency is essential for advertisers and DSP’s to refine their strategies. Google’s DV360 receives highly granular near real-time data including log-level reporting that allows advertisers to optimise future bids with precision. Rival DSPs, however, are relegated to aggregate or delayed reports stripped of critical identifiers.
This asymmetry of disclosure compounds the disadvantages faced by non-Google platforms. Without access to detailed feedback, rivals cannot recalibrate effectively, which leads to systematically weaker performance in subsequent auctions. Publishers observing this disparity are nudged to rely increasingly on Google’s demand further entrenching its dominance. Over time, the presence of independent DSPs in the market becomes nominal rather than substantive: they are formally available but commercially marginalised.
Informational asymmetry as abuse of dominance
The key question is whether Google’s control over informational inputs within the ad tech stack amounts to an abuse of dominance under Section 4(2)(e) of the Act. To assess this, it is necessary to delineate the relevant markets. The upstream market consists of advertising data and informational inputs, which enable targeting, user matching, and optimisation. The downstream market comprises display advertising intermediation services, including ad exchanges and demand-side platforms, where advertisers purchase impressions and publishers sell inventory. Google’s integrated control over publisher ad serving, exchange services, and downstream intermediation provides it with access to data that rivals cannot replicate. This informational advantage allows higher user-match rates, better targeting, and more efficient optimisation, consolidating Google’s position in the downstream market.
This interpretation is consistent with MCX Stock Exchange v. NSE, where the CCI held that leveraging under Section 4(2)(e) occurs when a dominant enterprise uses strength in “one relevant market to enter or protect another”, even without explicit exclusionary contracts. In this case, NSE used its dominance in certain exchange segments to subsidise entry into the currency derivatives market, which the CCI found exclusionary. Similarly, Google’s control over upstream informational inputs functions as a strategic advantage deployed to privilege its own downstream intermediation stack in display advertising. The alleged abuse does not arise from efficiency alone, instead, it creates a feedback loop of dominance. Rivals’ restricted access to equivalent data prevents them from improving performance further entrenching Google’s position over successive auction cycles.
Recently, in its ongoing Google AdTech investigation, the EU Commission issued a Statement of Objections finding that Google’s integration of GAM, AdX, and DV360 may distort competition by favouring its own services. In the United States, the Department of Justice’s 2023 complaint against Google alleges that its control over proprietary datasets and its integration across the ad tech stack enable exclusionary conduct by conferring advantages in targeting precision, iterative optimization and network effects. These allegations were reinforced by a 2025 court ruling which found that Google maintained illegal monopoly power in the ad server and ad exchange markets through conduct like tying DFP to AdX. These insights map directly onto India where Google’s exclusive control over auction inputs and outputs entrenches its dominance. Therefore, under Section 4(2)(e), Google’s informational advantage functions as leverage across markets. Here, the broader principle is clear: when platform architecture embeds informational asymmetry that forecloses competition, it falls squarely within the scope of antitrust scrutiny.
Way Forward: Restoring Contestability in India’s AdTech Market
India’s Adtech market remains highly concentrated with Google’s integrated stack of GAM, AdX, and DV360 capturing the majority of inventory and transactions. The competitive distortions that arise are not primarily the result of overt pricing practices but arise from design choices in auction architecture, algorithmic defaults and selective access to bidding data, all of which systematically privilege Google’s ecosystem. To safeguard competition and enable innovation, CCI must adopt a proactive regulatory framework that targets these structural and informational distortions.
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Functional Separation: Neutralising Conflict of Interest
Google’s dual role as auction facilitator and bidder creates incentives for self-preferencing, particularly through auction mechanics such as dynamic allocation and last look. Drawing from Article 5(7) of the DMA, which prohibits gatekeepers from tying access to one core service to another, the CCI can implement functional separation under Section 28 of the Act by requiring: (i) Independent governance for AdX distinct from DV360; (ii) Separate financial accounts and reporting lines to ensure operational transparency; (iii) Operational firewalls preventing preferential routing of inventory or data to Google’s DSP.
This targeted separation addresses the auction-stage foreclosure identified in the ADIF complaint by ensuring that Google cannot simultaneously operate as participant and referee, thereby allowing rival DSPs and publishers to compete on equal terms.
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Interoperability and Data Portability: Dismantling Tying and Lock-In
A second barrier arises from Google’s vertical integration, where access to premium inventory is conditioned on use of its DSP, limiting multi-homing and entrenching lock-in. Article 6(9) of the DMA requires gatekeepers to provide effective, real-time data portability to users and their authorized third parties, thereby reducing switching costs and weakening platform lock-in. Similarly Article 6(7) of DMA mandates technical interoperability with third-party applications and app stores.
In India, the CCI can adopt these principles proportionately by: (i) requiring open APIs for bid and campaign data allowing advertisers and publishers to operate across multiple DSPs; (ii) real-time portability of campaign datasets to enable multi-homing without loss of functionality or performance insights; (iii) standardized reporting formats to reduce integration costs for rival DSPs; (iv) imposing FRAND-style obligations on AdX to ensure non-preferential access to premium inventory. These measures tackle pre-auction and post-auction foreclosure by giving competitors visibility into campaigns, auction outcomes, and performance metrics, enabling effective competition.
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Institutionalising Oversight and Compliance Mechanisms
Structural remedies such as functional separation and interoperability require robust, ongoing oversight. The CCI can institutionalise an AdTech Oversight Unit under Section 17 of the Act to ensure enforceability, technical scrutiny and evidence-based monitoring. It’s Responsibilities may include: (i) Independent audit access to log-level bidding data under secure protocols; (ii) Tracking bid processing, inventory allocation and reporting data to detect discriminatory patterns; (iii) Reviewing algorithmic logic and allocation rules for potential self-preferencing or bias.
Under the DMA, designated “gatekeepers” must submit audited compliance reports and comply with transparency and interoperability obligations enforced by the EU Commission. Similarly, ACCC, through its ongoing Digital Platform Services Inquiry, performs market monitoring and issues recommendations aimed at preventing foreclosure in digital markets. Drawing on these models, the CCI could combine continuous technical audits with mandatory disclosures and the monitoring of key competition indicators such as auction win-rates, publisher revenue shares, and data access parity. Such oversight would help detect systemic exclusion early, enable informed business decisions by DSPs and publishers and ensure that structural integration does not harden into durable anti-competitive advantage.
Conclusion
The Google AdTech investigation marks a decisive moment in how Indian competition law must confront power in digital markets. Exclusion today does not always take the form of overt pricing practices or contractual restraints, it is embedded in algorithms, defaults, and infrastructure that quietly determine who gets to participate. By tying publisher ad serving to its own exchange, restricting YouTube inventory to its DSP, and engineering auction mechanics that privilege its bids, Google reshapes the very architecture of advertising markets. The harm lies not only in outcomes but in the design itself, where access to competition is conditioned on integration into Google’s stack. Recognising this, Section 4(2)(e) provides the analytical tools to frame informational asymmetry and leveraging as forms of abuse of dominance.
What is at stake is not simply fairness to rival DSPs or publishers but the integrity of India’s digital advertising ecosystem. When auction outcomes are no longer determined by genuine competition but by control over inputs and defaults, market forces are displaced by infrastructural manipulation. Restoring contestability requires more than retrospective enforcement, it demands forward-looking rules of fair digital design. Embedding transparency in auction mechanics, mandating interoperability, and ensuring structural separation of conflicted roles are not just regulatory refinements but essential safeguards for the future of India’s digital economy.