Switzerland's Competition Commission, commonly referred to as ComCo, has initiated an inquiry into alleged anti-competitive agreements in digital advertising auctions that involve travel operators and virtual gambling sites. The probe focuses on claims that competing firms refrained from bidding on rivals' trade-marked keywords in search-engine keyword auctions run by firms including Alphabet's Google and Microsoft's Bing, among others.
Keyword bidding is a common digital advertising practice in which companies pay search platforms to improve the visibility of their links for certain search queries. ComCo said it began investigating after firms contacted the regulator to report that companies within the travel sector and online casino operators had abstained from bidding on keywords tied to their competitors' trademarks.
The authority described such conduct as potentially amounting to an unlawful agreement to restrict competition - a dynamic that could disadvantage consumers by making it harder to compare providers. ComCo highlighted that limiting bids on rivals' trademarked terms could reduce the ease with which consumers discover alternative offers on search results.
ComCo has opened two separate investigations. The first targets three companies that sell package holidays in Switzerland. The second encompasses nearly all online casinos operating in the country. The regulator declined to disclose the names of the companies under scrutiny.
ComCo indicated the probes could take between one and two years to complete. While search engines themselves are not formal targets of the investigations, they will be interviewed as part of the inquiry. ComCo director Patrik Ducrey said investigators will engage with the search platforms to determine whether they were affected.
"We will be speaking with all the search engines to see if they have been affected," Ducrey said, adding it was too early to say how much money was involved in the alleged agreements.
The regulator's statements stress that the investigation was prompted by complaints from market participants rather than an internal tip, and that the alleged conduct spans distinct parts of the consumer-facing online economy - packaged travel services on one hand and online casinos on the other. ComCo did not provide figures on financial volumes tied to the alleged behaviour.
Context and next steps
ComCo's actions will involve questioning the search engines identified by the complaints to establish whether the alleged non-bidding arrangements influenced keyword auctions. The office has not specified a deadline beyond the general one-to-two-year estimate for completing the inquiries.