Google faces yet another lawsuit for “driving out” ad rivals

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and eight US states have filed suit against Google, saying it has too much control over the online advertising market. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said his actions had “weakened, if not destroyed, competition in the ad technology industry”.

While, Google said the DOJ “doubled down” on an argument that was wrong. The case sought to “pick winners and losers” in a competitive industry, the company said.

Insider Intelligence, a market research firm says Google’s total digital advertising revenue in the US has fallen from 36.7% in 2016 to 28.8% in 2022. But Google is still the market leader. The bulk of Google’s multibillion-dollar revenue comes from online advertising.

Mr. Garland alleged that Google’s anti-competitive behavior extended to three key areas:

• It controls the technology used by almost all major website publishers to offer ad space for sale.
• It manages the main tool used by advertisers to buy ad space.
• It operates the largest ad exchange matching publishers and advertisers.

Because of Google’s strategy, Mr. Garland said, “website developers make less money and advertisers pay more.” It meant fewer publishers could offer content without subscriptions, paywalls or other means of making money.

Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said the company’s actions over 15 years had the effect of “driving out competitors, reducing competition, increasing advertising costs, decreasing website publisher revenues, suppressing innovation, and shutting down our public marketplace of ideas.”

But in a statement, Google said the legal action is largely a copy of a baseless lawsuit from the Texas Attorney General, much of which was recently dismissed by a federal court.

“DOJ doubles down on a weak argument that would slow innovation, increase advertising costs and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.”

“DOJ doubles down on a weak argument that would slow innovation, increase advertising costs and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.”

In a blog post, Dan Taylor, vice president of global advertising, said the DOJ’s action would “reverse years of innovation and hurt the advertising industry as a whole.”

Eight countries filed a lawsuit against Google

Google is accused of violating US antitrust law in the nearly 150-page complaint, which seeks to “stop Google’s anti-competitive plan, break Google’s monopolistic hold on the market, and bring back competition in digital advertising.” “.

If the courts side with the US government, the company’s advertising business would be destroyed. In its complaint, the Justice Department is asking the court to force Google to sell some of its advertising business.

The US states of Connecticut, California, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia also join the lawsuit.

This new case comes after a lawsuit was filed in 2020 against the tech giant during the Trump administration for its dominance in search.

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