Written by Haim Ravia and Dotan Hammer
The U.S. Department of Justice, together with eight states in the U.S., filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products. The lawsuit is part of a series of antitrust lawsuits filed against Google and other large technology companies in the U.S.
The complaint alleges that Google “corrupted the legitimate competition” in the field of online advertising by acquiring its competitors and becoming the dominant player in the field. Google’s monopoly forces advertisers to its services and “disrupts the ability to use competing products,” the lawsuit claims. The Department of Justice said that Google takes more than 30% of the advertising dollars, and in some cases – far more.
In response, Google said that the lawsuit repeats baseless claims from a lawsuit previously filed by the Attorney General of Texas, most of which was recently dismissed by the court. This lawsuit against Google is the second antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice against Google and is considered the fifth major lawsuit filed against the company. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolizing search and search advertising.
The lawsuit seeks various reliefs, including “the divestiture of, at minimum, the Google Ad Manager suite, including both Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, and Google’s ad exchange, AdX”.
Click here to read the complaint against Google.
