Digital advertisers have filed a complaint with the German Federal Cartel Officer, seeking a deeper antitrust investigation of Google’s news service and how exactly the search engine gathers data.
The Movement For The Open Web, a body of advertising and publishing companies, is pushing for an excavation of how Google’s recent changes regarding the tracking of users may harm publishers trying to gather data to target advertising.
Google says its plan improves privacy for users.
Google has already nixed plans to remove third-party cookies altogether, following blowback from regulators and advertisers. It still intends to phase out third-party cookies, and introduce a similar but less intrusive tracking system that categorises visitors more broadly, based on areas of interest.