BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU competition enforcers will decide by Feb. 10 whether to allow Deutsche Telekom (ETR:DTEGn), Orange, Telefonica (BME:TEF) and Vodafone (LON:VOD) to set up an advertising joint venture to compete with Big Tech, a European Commission filing showed.
The telecoms operators sought approval from the EU antitrust watchdog on Jan. 6 for the joint venture, which would be their first attempt to take on Meta and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) unit Google in the lucrative online advertising sector.
The Commission can approve the deal with or without remedies or it can open a four-month long investigation if it has serious concerns.
"The JV will offer a privacy-led, digital identification solution to support the digital marketing and advertising activities of brands and publishers," the Commission said.