Japan planning antitrust action against Google over search ads, Nikkei says

Japan’s antitrust watchdog is planning to push Google to voluntarily reform its business practices over alleged unfair restrictions on a search advertising partnership with Yahoo, Nikkei’s Konori Fujita reports. The Japan Fair Trade Commission has been investigating the Alphabet unit over keyword-targeted search ad technology it provides to Yahoo, now a subsidiary of Line operator LY Corp., according to a source familiar with the situation. Google is believed to have already submitted an improvement plan to prevent the problem from happening again, which the agency is expected to soon accept.