The U.S. FTC Investigates Amazon and Google Over Possible Lack of Transparency in Digital Advertising Costs

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched a formal investigation into Amazon and Google (owned by Alphabet Inc.) to determine whether these tech giants have provided misleading or incomplete information about the real costs of advertising on their platforms.

According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, the probe is being led by the FTC’s Consumer Protection Division, which is focusing its analysis on the transparency and clarity of the fees applied in the contracting of advertising space.

Amazon and Google under scrutiny for their ad models

Amazon manages its advertising business through real-time auctions for so-called sponsored listings or sponsored ads, which appear when users search for specific products.

Meanwhile, Google runs its ads through ultra-fast automatic auctions, executed in fractions of a second after each search.

A context of increased regulatory pressure

This investigation comes at a time of growing regulatory scrutiny over Big Tech. In a related ruling on September 3, a U.S. federal court determined that Alphabet is not required to divest the Chrome browser, despite accusations of antitrust practices.

The court, however, acknowledged that Google maintains a monopoly in the internet search market, prohibiting it from signing exclusive distribution contracts and ordering it to share certain data with competitors.

The ruling also established that Google will not have to suspend payments to Apple or Samsung for the pre-installation of its products, nor divest strategic assets, nor temporarily exit the search market, as had been requested by the Justice Department.

The FTC’s stance

With this new probe, the FTC reinforces its watchdog stance on business practices in the tech sector—an area that generates billions of dollars in annual advertising revenue and remains under intense scrutiny by regulators and lawmakers.