Credit: Hennie Stander via Unsplash
Australia’s digital advertising ecosystem could be on the brink of reform, with industry leaders cautiously optimistic about the ACCC’s recommendations aimed at reining in the dominance of tech giants.
The Digital Platform Services Inquiry, launched in 2020, was designed to scrutinise the power of companies such as Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon.
Now, the consumer watchdog has laid out sweeping recommendations aimed at increasing transparency, strengthening competition and protecting consumers in the fast-evolving digital advertising and media landscape.
AdNews asked agencies about the tenth and final report, which marked the end of a five-year inquiry.
Lexlab director and founder Alfie Lagos said the recommendations may finally offer brands a lifeline after years of yelling into the digital void over suspended accounts and wrongly rejected ads.
“The call for an independent dispute resolution body could be a game-changer for SMEs and the indie agencies that support them,” he said.
“Right now, too many businesses are stuck in feedback loops with bots, chasing answers on policy breaches they didn’t even know existed. And when AI moderation is involved, appeals can feel like arguing with a vending machine.”
Lagos said he’s most excited by the ACCC’s push for platform-specific conduct codes and an economy-wide unfair trading practices ban.
“Greater transparency in ad delivery, auction mechanics and data use would be a welcome shift, particularly for brands who manage their own campaigns and feel outgunned in the current system,” he said.
“We’ve seen high-performing strategies quietly blended with low-quality inventory, presented as success, while brands are left with little control and even less insight. Without external scrutiny, the line between optimisation and obfuscation has blurred.”
The Pistol head of strategy Emilia Chambers said Australia isn’t leading global reforms, it’s catching up.
“The big winners of these recommendations are consumers,” she said.
“By holding companies more accountable, implementing greater safety parameters and reducing deceptive measures that brands employ, people can feel more at ease that the content they’re engaging with online, and the products they’re buying, are being held to a higher standard than they have previously.”
Chambers said she is most interested in how the new digital competition regime will impact the Apple-Google app duopoly.
“We’ve seen how the Coles and Woolworths supermarket duopoly has had negative impacts, with consumers experiencing increased prices and restricted choice, and suppliers facing a power imbalance that weakened their ability to fairly negotiate,” she said.
“Breaking down the Apple-Google duopoly should hopefully open doors for new and upcoming tech providers, encouraging more innovation and greater choice for consumers.
“The implications of these recommendations on brands will vary, but shouldn’t be met with alarm.”
IMAA CEO Sam Buchanan has backed the ACCC’s call to address imbalances in Australia’s digital media and advertising ecosystem.
He welcomed the focus on transparency and accountability in ad tech, ex ante regulation to prevent anti-competitive behaviour, consumer protections against misleading interfaces, and monitoring emerging risks in areas such as generative AI, cloud computing and gaming.
“As the peak industry body representing the independent media agency sector, the IMAA has long advocated for fairer competition, greater transparency, and improved access to data and inventory for all market participants,” he said.
“The ACCC’s recommendations align closely with the challenges our members face daily in dealing with powerful digital platforms whose commercial practices too often disadvantage independent agencies and their clients.”
Buchanan said independent agencies are critical to the health, diversity and innovation of the media and advertising industry.
“We encourage the Federal Government to act swiftly on the ACCC’s recommendations and ensure that upcoming reforms prioritise transparency, accountability and equitable access – giving all agencies, regardless of size, the opportunity to compete on a level playing field,” he said.
“The IMAA stands ready to engage constructively with government, regulators, and industry stakeholders to help shape a regulatory framework that protects consumers, supports innovation and ensures a vibrant, competitive digital ecosystem for the future.”
AiMCO chair Tegan Boorman said members are ready to work with the ACCC to ensure that any new targeted guidance document is relevant, workable and well communicated to the industry.
“While Australia has robust competition and consumer laws capable of addressing many forms of harmful conduct across the economy, current laws are insufficient to deal with the range and scale of consumer and competition harms identified in digital platform markets,” she said.
“The ACCC advised a plan to release a targeted guidance document for influencers and businesses involved in influencer advertising. Such guidance, when released, will be an important development for the influencer marketing industry, which has yet to view many examples that may otherwise significantly deter businesses from undertaking certain practices that could potentially result in harm to consumers and other businesses.
“It is anticipated that the targeted guidance, in conjunction with the recommended reforms, will go some way to assist with improving influencer advertising transparency across digital platforms, reducing the risk of widespread consumer harm arising out of certain influencer content and reducing competition issues between businesses.”
Media Words founder and Elise Hedley-Dale said the ACCC has put a spotlight on a system that’s been “rigged” for too long.
She said the proposals were clear but warned the deeper issue is a market culture that values scale over substance and clicks over context, fuelling problems regulation alone can’t fix.
“Australia’s digital ecosystem has been dominated by a handful of platforms that play by their own rules, controlling how media is bought, sold, measured and monetised,” she said.
“We rely on reporting we can’t fully trust – impressions we can’t trace, conversions we can’t verify, and platforms that profit while we’re kept in the dark.”
Hedley-Dale said the industry has become accustomed to the “illusion of performance” which often hides “messy truths”.
“We bang on about supporting local media and Aussie businesses, but unless regulation shifts, we simply can’t,” she said.
“The ACCC has given the government a clear direction. The way forward won’t be easy – and it won’t be perfect. But hard things are often the ones worth pushing for. Let’s hope the government has the backbone to follow through.”
Bench Media head of performance Aaron Jansen said the report brings long-standing concerns into sharp focus – including murky ad delivery, opaque auctions and a lack of transparency that continues to erode confidence in digital media.
“In a landscape where every impression is expected to perform, this lack of visibility weakens the industry’s ability to optimise spend and deliver measurable impact,” he said.
“The issue is not just about proving ROI. It is also about knowing whether campaigns are reaching audiences in meaningful ways. Without transparency, agencies are forced to operate in the dark.”
While Jansen welcomed the push for mandatory, service-specific codes of conduct, he warned regulation alone won’t fix a fragmented system.
“Agencies must play an active role by not only responding to change but also contributing to it,” he said.
“Partnering with the ACCC, IAB and other industry bodies will be essential to ensure new frameworks are practical and reflect the realities of media buying.”
BCM managing director Phil McDonald said the scope of the report was a blessing and a curse.
He urged the ACCC to focus on areas where deception and harm are most widespread – starting with the big players.
“The largest ad tech, social and e-commerce platforms need to be looked at first,” he told AdNews.
“There needs to be a targeted awareness and education campaign aimed at the consumers most at risk of falling victim to anti-competitive and dark design practices.
“This is going to be a long process and the staging and prioritising of this review will be critical to its success.”
Enigma head of data and technology Antonio Panuccio said the findings were unsurprising.
He welcomed the inquiry’s focus on the need to lift digital fluency across both consumers and businesses.
“Yes, big tech isn’t pulling their weight – but users need to be self-sufficient in mitigating risk and staying safe to grapple with malicious online actors, especially as AI accelerates the scale and speed at which online harms spread,” he said.
Panuccio added that addressing dark patterns alongside AI should be tackled head-on.
“Agencies know about adtech opaqueness, and the side-effect is that grey practices have trickled down into agency trading from hidden fees to turning a blind eye to data malpractice,” he said.
“Google and others are overzealous with pushing AI and convenient ‘platform glitches’ that continually re-enable AI generation after disabling them have elicited mass complaints from brands who have violated regulations because of falsehoods in their ads.”
The Media Store head of digital Nick Hayes criticised the ACCC’s latest report as lacking focus and practical direction.
He also questioned the call for a “whole-of-government approach” to regulating digital platforms, suggesting it amounted to little more than “an information-sharing and collaboration initiative.”
Hayes pointed to the stalled local content reforms as an example of government inaction – noting that despite a 2019 agreement to require platforms like Netflix and YouTube to produce Australian content, the changes were paused in 2024 over potential US trade conflicts.
“It’s a 400-page monolith with recommendations throughout but not a clear priority or plan on how to address any one area of concern,” he said.
“I’m worried that we will be reviewing a similar document, covering similar areas across the same tech giants in four years time, with the outcome to extend the existing body monitoring the tech industry for another four years.”
Yango managing partner Nick Murdoch said regulating tech remains a massive challenge for politicians who don’t fully understand it, especially as AI ramps up.
“There is no way the ACCC can police all the issues raised,” he said.
“It touches on things like manipulative design in consumer apps, monopolisation of ad tech stacks in business, and the sweeping up of smaller innovative firms by the big players thus reducing competition.
“Bearing in mind that these are just a few issues in a sea of complexity. I applaud the attempt, and we need it, but one questions the ability to slow what is a runaway train.”
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