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cailianshe news, september 19 (editor: ma lan)google is engaged in an antitrust lawsuit battle with the u.s. department of justice, and according to people familiar with the matter, google seems willing to make concessions first to end the european union's antitrust investigation.

google is willing to sell its ad exchange, adx, the intermediary marketplace where publishers can make their unsold ad space available to advertisers in real time, two people familiar with the matter said on wednesday, but european publishers say selling adx alone is not enough.

the us antitrust regulator wants to force google to sell its ad manager products, including adx and google's publisher ad server (dfp).

three antitrust lawyers revealed that google had never proposed a compromise plan such as selling assets in previous antitrust cases, which also highlights the great pressure google is currently facing in the antitrust field.

ongoing antitrust investigations

people familiar with the matter pointed out that european publishers hope that google will do more than just divest adx. according to previous testimonies made by different publishers, google has a strong monopoly in the advertising field and has used this power to harm the interests of competitors as well as publishers and advertisers.

in 2019, the european commission ruled that google abused its dominant position in the advertising industry to prevent its customers from using the services of other brokers. the eu therefore fined google up to 1.49 billion euros.

but the fine was overturned on wednesday after the european court of justice said the european commission had made mistakes in its antitrust assessment and failed to take into account all relevant circumstances.

however, this is just one of google's many troubles in europe. the eu has imposed a total fine of 8.2 billion euros on google due to antitrust investigations between 2017 and 2019.

sources pointed out that due to the complexity of the case, the european commission is unlikely to ask google to divest assets at present, but it may make a request in the coming months to order google to stop its so-called anti-competitive behavior. if google does not cooperate with the relevant orders, the eu may issue another divestment order.

although google is being targeted by both european and american regulators, its public attitude remains firm. google said that the european commission's allegations against third-party display advertising products are a misinterpretation of the advertising technology field, which is highly competitive and developing rapidly, and google remains committed to developing this business.

as of now, google has not responded to the possible sale of adx.