News Media Canada filed its submission to the federal government’s consultation on the future of competition policy in Canada late last week.
The government is holding the consultation because the rise of digital commerce has had a lead to a new class of dominant gatekeepers and even growth. This reality has had a considerable impact on how Canadians do business and consume products.
“We are very concerned that important aspects of our competition enforcement framework are not fit for purpose for today’s digital economy, where web giants have durable market power and exercise that dominance to the detriment of consumers, businesses, and the overall competitiveness of the marketplace,” our submission said.
In particular, News Media Canada pointed out that in search, aggregation, and digital advertising, Google has developed monopoly-like power.
Said News Media Canada about Google’s ad exchanges: “the system is opaque and operates more like a casino (where the house always wins) than a stock exchange. Stock exchanges are regulated, but digital ad exchanges more closely resemble the Wild West, where high trading costs and a lack of transparency harm both advertisers and publishers.”
A full PDF of News Media Canada’s submission can be downloaded here.
