Justice Department investigators are looking into how Chrome policies, including those related to cookies, affect the ad and news industries.
Google's plan to block a popular web tracking tool called"cookies" is a source of concern for US Justice Department investigators who have been asking advertising industry executives whether the move by the search giant will hobble its smaller rivals, people familiar with the situation said.
Investigators are asking whether Google is using Chrome, which has 60% global market share, to reduce competition by preventing rival ad companies from tracking users through cookies while leaving loopholes for it to gather data with cookies, analytics tools and other sources, the sources added. Investigators also have asked rivals whether they encountered behavior similar to or worse than the advertising-focused accusations that attorneys general from Texas and other states leveled against Google in a lawsuit last December, the people said.Google defended its ad business, saying it was helping companies grow and protecting users' privacy from exploitative practices.
Texas on Tuesday amended its complaint to, among other things, allege that forthcoming changes to Chrome"are anti-competitive because they raise barriers to entry and exclude competition" in web advertising.Google has been limiting data collection and usage across several of its services. The Chrome changes would affect ad tech companies that use cookies to collect people's viewing history to direct more relevant ads to them.
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