An alliance of tech businesses, advertisers and publishers has lodged a formal complaint with the European Union over Google's next generation of its controversial digital advertising system.
The group, Movement for an Open Web (MOW), claims the new system, which will be an overhaul of how adverts work on the Chrome browser, is hugely anti-competitive.
Google is planning to replace so-called third party cookies with a new 'Privacy Sandbox'. It means that instead of these traditional cookies, where advertisers can track individuals across the websites they visit, users will be split into cohorts.
But MOW claims this would restrict open web competition by reducing the amount of information other tech, advertising and publishing firms can gather on users.
MOW said the Privacy Sandbox will impair independent analytics, advertising, fraud detection, data services, performance optimisation and other open web features.
It said the California firm will also increase the value of data it gets from sources uniquely available to it through integrated services such as search functions.
Google is planning to replace so-called third party cookies with a new 'Privacy Sandbox'. The company's headquarters at Mountain View in California are pictured
MOW's complaint, which was filed last week, follows another it made in November 2020 to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.
This saw Google respond in June this year by offering a series of 'commitments' which placed the development of the Privacy Sandbox under the CMA's supervision.
