The European Commission has given its unconditional approval to the creation of a digital marketing and advertising joint venture between Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone.
The Commission found the plans did not raise any competition concerns in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, where the venture would operate.
Subject to the user’s consent, the joint venture will generate a unique digital code derived from the user’s mobile or fixed network subscription. The code would allow brands and publishers to recognize users on their websites or applications on a pseudonymous basis, group them under different categories and tailor their content to specific users’ groups.
The partners are looking to make up ground lost to the US tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
The Commission believed that the companies would not have the ability or the incentive to force TV broadcasters to subscribe to the digital identification services offered by the joint venture given the limited common customer base between these two different products.
